


Ghosts of our Fathers

by luminare_ardua, YellowShapedBox



Series: Dragon's Light [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Arena, Blades, Mages' Guild, Prequel, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:12:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2726855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminare_ardua/pseuds/luminare_ardua, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowShapedBox/pseuds/YellowShapedBox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin's whole purpose in coming to the Mages' Guild was to conquer the nightmares that plagued Julius his father. To conquer them, silence them, change them, whatever it took. To escape the ghosts of the past. </p><p>But Martin's past was his future, and it did not allow escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Face of the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luminare_ardua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminare_ardua/gifts), [baratron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baratron/gifts).



> So, the ownership of this one is complex. I, YellowShapedBox, am writing and had the impetus to, but the concept was luminare_ardua's, it's part of her Dragon's Light continuity, and I'm doing some heavy collaboration with her behind the scenes.
> 
> Hoping to do it justice!

She had to forgo the sapphire circlet. It set off the ensemble perfectly, but Caula reluctantly decided it simply wouldn't do, not for a merchants' affair; it would look brash. Perhaps a broad sash in cloth-of-silver... she moved toward the wardrobe, to survey what was to hand.

“I'm glad to catch you alone,” said a voice behind her. Uriel stood stiffly in the doorway.

“Hm?” she asked, allowing herself a smile.

“Forgive me that I broach a difficult matter, but--”

“Difficult!” she laughed. (She'd already had an earful on the matter from Enman.) “No,” she said tenderly, “no, it's one of the best ideas you've had in years. It'll do the boys a world of good. Go out and see the Empire! There's no better piece of it than this, I'll grant, but it's a small corner all the same. It does little to foster the cosmopolitan spirit. And we'll have a bit more peace and quiet in the palace, too... oh, Uriel, I know things have been difficult between us of late, but... why, whatever is the matter?”

For whatever discomfort her husband had come in with had only redoubled as she spoke.

“It's... it's _Julius_ , my queen.”

“Julius Ormarson?” she said. “Why, what about him?”

Of course, it had to be then that she saw it. This _was_ Julius Ormarson, Mirror Prime. He didn't even have his enchantments on – his chin was uncleft, his eyebrows thick, his eyes unmistakably brown. He was, she granted, dressed as finely as Uriel habitually was. But then he did live in the Palace.

“Ah,” she said, floundering in embarrassment as she hadn't in nineteen months. “Well. I see that you continue to earn your pay, at least.”

“I endeavor to,” said Julius tightly.

“I trust of course that you won't repeat this,” she said, as blithely as she could, turning to the wardrobe so her mortified face was at an obfuscating angle. “But then I suppose _that's_ part of your pay, too, isn't it...” She paused, her hand midway to the second drawer. “What was it you meant to talk about, anyway?”

But Julius had already gone. Naturally. She sniffed and resumed her preparation for the gala.

As Julius Ormarson, twenty feet from her dressing-chamber door, let his reserve give way and slammed his fist to bruising effect against the palace wall. Uriel... _what_ he could have seen in that flittering _cow_...

Time was shorter than he'd thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Ria Silmane had actually turned her back to an open door. It was unbelievable enough that Julius had to magically scan the perimeter to be sure of what he was seeing, but so it was: as he drew closer, she was poring over something he vaguely recognized as an aetheric chart, copied and annotated from another also in her hand, but he would have a hard time with even rudimentary Conjuration this many years gone from Battlespire.

So he made the information gathering more straightforward – in one lunging motion, he grabbed her by her precious raven locks and held his shortsword to her throat.

“I always thought you were wasted as an apprentice,” he said calmly, over her expected discomfiture. “But Imperial Battlemage, and no powers of destruction... that, Ria, is another oversight again. Summon anything, and you die before it touches me. Now...”

“You...” There was confusion as much as fear in her face, or at least she arranged it so. “You are one of the Mirrors. You have lost your place here, haven't you? Why... what have I got...”

“I've heard nothing of losing a job, but... No, that is a trifle. Tell me first where the princes are. Tell me where they are bound.”

“Do you expect me to believe you have maintained your place as a Mirror?” said Ria, firm and fragile at the same moment. “Your hair, your beard, they belie it. But I tell you I have no part in that loss. Or... the princes? Release me. I beg you.”

“The hair is an illusion,” he said stiffly, feeling his will beginning to waver. “Not the usual run, that's all.” He resteeled himself. “What is your master's intent with the princes? _Where is Uriel?_ ”

“What are you...” She could barely get the words out, around a lump of hopeless frustration. “What are you talking about?”

Julius, try as he might, found nothing in her manner to convict her. He let go, and spoke as she recomposed herself. “I'm not paid so well only to stand about in a fancy robe twice a month, Ria. I know social cues. Mannerisms. Better than the other Mirrors put together, if I may say so. And for a week now – the week since your master's retirement – Uriel's manner has fled, fled entirely but for the most conscious gestures... and at bottom, Tharn's tics, Tharn's temper. You are innocent of it, I'm sure of that now, but if there is purchase against him, you may know it.”

Ria sat, blank and still as though she had been petrified. “I had only given thought to it as far as I was relieved of his presence. However. If I am to be of use to--”

She rose abruptly from her chair.

“He is coming.”

Quickly, Julius shot a Chameleon spell at her. Now it was too late to do anything about it, he realized that, with only one door open, the imperfect invisibility would only cover her escape if he put up direct resistance.

That there was no conceivable chance he could win a toe-to-toe struggle with Tharn.

But that was the path he had laid for himself. Turning from it would only mean he'd lose the rest of it.

Tharn strode into Ria's study, clutching a staff with an flywing-green stone head that Julius had never seen, but the power of it was unmistakable. Even now he wore Uriel's face, his raiment, but there was no pretense now. Only mockery.

“Jagar Tharn,” said Julius, who had little remaining need for pretense himself. “I never did think you had much of a gift for management.”

“Ah, is that what you believe?” he said, arching Uriel's eyebrow. “I fear the Prince of Ambition disagrees...”

Julius allowed himself a grim smile as Tharn began what would no doubt be a long string of remarks in that vein. He never was one to resist a rhetorical tear to his inferiors. He dodged behind Ria's desk and, from that cover, unleashed a firestorm, which incidentally destroyed her notes in the process. He had to trust that Ria herself was long gone.

Tharn's warding barrier absorbed most of the rest.

“Elder Council out of session,” called Julius, dodging a spike of ice as he waited for his magic to come back to him. “Your lackey away from her desk. A terrific span of luck – how long do you suppose it will last--”

The next spell hit him. A paralytic beam.

“Julius Ormarson. Faithful to a fault.” A terrible grin split the face of his Emperor, as the usurper who wore it advanced. “You do not comprehend how easily I might dispose of you, do you? But I am not without my sentimental side... Yes, you may join your master... Fear not, you will hardly need sustenance where you are going...”

It was his last sight of Mundus. That face. A flash of green light.

He was in a pit, a fiery-hued pit, the walls impossibly high. And no, he was not alone – a figure lay curled, wracked with irregular breath, still in his robes of state... He rushed toward his lord...

But it was then

(not healthy for him to sleep that way)

that the nightmares

(dear I have my hands full right now could you)

took him

(father)

the torments indescribable even as he

“Father!”

Uriel's face, in the firelight. He screamed, his legs propelled him, toppling... the armchair he had dozed off in.

“Julius!” cried Cilla.

Yes. He remembered now. He had been safely outside Oblivion for a dozen years and more. Uriel had much more age on him now...

“A war nightmare,” he muttered lamely.

“You still have nightmares from the Simulacrum wars?” said Martin, frowning. The child's perspective – if he hadn't lived to see it, it must have been a very long time ago indeed.

He closed his eyes, so he didn't have to contemplate Martin's face. “Sometimes I fear I always will, my son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The big obstacle here is that Jagar Tharn was written at a time before Elder Scrolls was required to make sense. My attempt to hammer in that square peg is he's basically in control of the scheme, but he couldn't care less about things like maintaining an Empire - his ambition is to be "cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun," actual governance be damned. Not Dagon's ideal, but it'll do in a pinch.


	2. The Dragon's Blessing

“I... I can't do this any more.” Julius had given himself a month to be sure of his decision, and that haunted last month, when half the time, he had a thrill of horror at his own reflection, had more than served its purpose. “Forgive me. I just...”

Uriel's voice was regretful. “I understand.”

It was a relief that he didn't have to explain the precise cause of his distress, he reflected as he sipped his brandied tea. But then, Uriel had been in the oubliette beside him, and could think of reasons and to spare.

“I wish I could do the same, you know,” said Uriel, with the weariness that had settled in his throat since their return. “Cannibalism resurgent in Valenwood, the Camonna Tong running rampant in Morrowind, Crowns and Forebears back at one another's throats... Summerset can keep Auridon, needless to say...”

It did indeed go without saying. Prince Ebel owed the Summerguard his life.

(The boy had spent half his young life – literally half of it, his entire adolescence – in captivity. It astounded Julius how well he was managing. But it was a strictly stone prison, he had sustenance and conversation, he had not seen his own death, seen his father and brothers die, again and again in every permutation imaginable)

“But you are fortunate, Julius, truly. The only thing you need mend is yourself.”

(Usually Julius had been slowly torn apart, subjected to magics that kept him impossibly alive, reduced to nothing but nerve and flesh and agony)

“You might after all have the best of the bargain,” said Julius, smiling bravely but still unable to meet Uriel's eyes. “Potatoes and turnips make just as much labor, and for less reward.”

“Jauffre will visit from time to time, he vouches.”

“Where _is_ Jauffre? I'd expected he'd keep your lookout at the Temple for the next year at least.”

Uriel sighed through his nose. “It's just come up. Evidently there's a sect of Talos worshippers banging drums against my poor showing as Emperor – which is fair – and calling consequently for my death – which of course I would rather contest.”

“Not in Bruma?” said Julius in alarm. He'd already staked out his homestead in the county.

“I daresay the Blades would be prompter if it were.”

“Fair enough,” said Julius, who had noticed a pattern in that regard. “In any case, I'll naturally wish Jauffre success.”

“You are in safe company with me,” said Uriel severely. “He _will_ succeed, and we both know that perfectly well. If there's any bright thing to be gleaned from that damnable oubliette, it's knowing the wealth of junctures at which I shall _not_ die.”

There was a silence in which the clink of Uriel's teaspoon against his cup rang unnaturally loud.

“I must contest that,” said Julius uncomfortably. “I have had trouble myself, at times, making out what is real, what is memory. More than I would care to admit. But they were the fantasies of the Deadlands, my king, they weren't prophecy, they weren't even set in stone from one moment to the next.”

Another silence, more still than the first.

“An inopportune time to discover it,” said Uriel with a macabre sort of amusement, “but if that's how the two of us tally, I may have come up with the Dragon's Blessing after all.”

The touch of Akatosh, the preternatural insight that surfaced at times in the Septim line. Prophecy. Julius' limbs convulsed as though he were back in the pit. “No. No, Uriel, it won't happen like that, not like any of it... Dagon won't take you...”

“Not for many years,” said Uriel, with a voice oddly confident it was nothing but reassuring.

Julius licked his lips, tried to speak. There was something in his throat keeping the sound from getting out.

“If there's any purpose to you going, it's that you're no longer troubled so on my account.”

“And... fires?” Julius managed at last, in a hateful squeak that his voice had never collapsed to before. “Dragonfires?”

“Not for many years,” said Uriel evenly. “And I am making arrangements against the day. I'd have you live at peace, Julius, as you intend – the alternative does no more good to me, or to Tamriel.”

 

* * *

 

 

As a man employed more or less to attract murder attempts, Julius had not given the first thought to marriage in the Imperial City. But, a bit to his bewilderment, he found that his modest wealth, the full Nordic beard he cultivated, and the undisguisable mark of the veteran made him a highly eligible bachelor among the lovely young ladies of Bruma.

Cilla the builder's assistant was not young: she was thirty-four. (Younger than he was, but from the talk of the scholars, his own age was no longer a certainty.) She was not lovely: her face was pinched and her figure boyish. But she had great vigor and a decided wealth of common sense, and from the moment she saw the bookshelves he'd nailed to every shelf in the wall and waxed eloquent on the contents of a dozen of the books they held, Julius knew at once that he loved her. And when, in time, he discovered that she held the confidence of others as nothing short of sacred, he asked her hand in marriage with a proper Nordic haste.

He told her the truth of him, as he never told a soul, but Uriel's truths were not his to tell, and the last of those truths he kept from the thought of. If the world inched closer to Oblivion with each passing year, and if the world might prevail but he himself could do nothing to forestall it, it was best to keep it from his own concern, never mind his wife's.

It would have been good, too, to have a family to look after as well as a field. But their first daughter was born dead, and Cilla came close to the grave losing the next, and as her convalescence became a certainty, they heavily agreed there would be no more attempt.

When Jauffre made one of his rare visits weeks later, offering a nameless and motherless child to raise, they could scarcely believe their good fortune.

* * *

 

 _The very image of his father, isn't he?_ Karinnarre the merchant had bubbled on their trip into town. _If anything, Cilla, I would question his maternity!_

Julius had said nothing further than he had to the rest of the day, but as soon as Martin had fallen soundly asleep (these habits were to be developed early), he began curtly, “Well. I would say Karinnarre has a point.”

“Not at all,” said Cilla, in the bantering way she had that always hid counsel close under the surface. “He's got my olive complexion, after all. And your father's eyes.”

“Fa's eyes were blacker than mine.”

“They weren't if I say so,” said Cilla firmly. “If it's on this account your sleep's been poor the past month, I could have spoken to you sooner had I known.”

“I needed a judgment other than my own. I can't always trust mine as I ought to.” Julius cast his face despairingly to the wood-beam ceiling. “Cilla, how can we possibly compare as parents with the Emperor of all Tamriel?”

“To be honest, Julius? Emperors rarely make good fathers, and what you've said of Uriel...” She sighed. “Oh, I know you're never one to hear a word against the man, so never mind that, but I should hope I at least compare favorably to Caula bloody Voria...”

“You would take a bit more interest in his schooling,” Julius acknowledged.

“And I will. To begin with, I daresay I'll have Martin reading sooner than any royal tutor would manage, and certainly with more enthusiasm. Their sort would want to beat it in – I've never thought these high-class tutors cared much for reading themselves, and that'd be why they fall short."

Julius couldn't help but smile to anticipate it.

They had been entrusted with the care of a prince without the barest warning. He could not fully suppress the notion that they had been entrusted with the fate of the world in the process. But if so, there _were_ still many years before them. And, when his worries were put aside, he did judge himself to do well. As a son, Martin was easy to love.

 

* * *

 

 

Martin grew to be a quick study. It was a struggle to set him to a task, but when he chose one himself, there was little to get in the way of it. One summer's night when he was seven, he came into the house with a magelight hovering behind him, and Julius was forced to tamp down on his pride and give Martin a lengthy lecture on what could come of a spell incompletely understood – he could just as easily have picked up the book next to it that told how to start a magical fire.

So Martin asked him for instruction on that, too, and soon enough he had charge of the fireplace. Martin was a boy to whom smiles came rarely, so to see him smile with pride was all the more rewarding for that.

Julius took particular care to pass to Martin some of his social observation.

You see how loud that lad's voice is, how laxly he stands? He's lying about the work he's done on the new cart, and what's more he doesn't particularly care that we know it. Let's follow him back to his master's place – I'll bet he's given up putting the boy straight, but we've got eyes, haven't we? And when he's actually got it completed, I'll be sure to let him know how well I appreciate it, so he'll do a brisk job the next time, or at least know prompt work is good for him.

Emme and Tourmal are always quarreling, and Emme's the only one who ever wants to make amends. Well, have you seen them make up? Ah, so Emme has a benign smile and Tourmal tells her to eat dung. Well, neither of them are making amends, then, and Tourmal's right not to – Emme's making promises she fully intends to break for her ma's benefit, and I'd better tell her so myself. If she were sorry, she'd look it from time to time. By the way, it'd be the same if Emme frowned with bit of a pout, not drawing the cheeks – like so.

Martin picked it up well, Julius thought. But in time, he and Cilla began to notice that Martin couldn't always explain his observations of people's emotions, and that some of them were beyond the understanding of his years. It was the Dragon's Blessing, they concluded, and if it made him a better judge of character than his father, it was blessing indeed.

So passed the waking hours. But asleep, his mind seemed bent on undermining everything he set to build.

If Dagon had had mastery of his sleep for a decade, more, less, whatever it was, his own dreams had proven an avid apprentice. As Martin grew to resemble his father ever more markedly, the dreams took avid note. What he'd seen in the pit, and more he'd invented to torment himself over the years, all took Martin's shape. Martin was Geldall, drowned in the hordes pouring from Battlespire. He was Enman, bound to a sacrificial altar. He was Calaxes, appointed by Tharn to the Temple of the One and murdered by Tharn within it. And there, he was Tharn, too. So often, there was the pervasive suggestion that Tharn had taken Martin's guise, or that Martin was Tharn all along.

After the incident where he'd well-nigh burned the old armchair in terror of Martin's face, he was forced to admit to himself that these horrid fancies were not always confined to the sleeping world. Julius Ormarson, Mirror Prime, who had prided himself on seeing fine distinctions, could no longer be relied on to tell the face of his greatest tormentor from the face of his own son.

The more he worried about it, the less he slept, and the worse were the dreams. And then he worried more. He told Cilla everything, in those rare moments he could trust to privacy. She told him it was best not to worry. But this, he couldn't manage. She would try to divert him with some absorbing task, but he saw the gambit for what it was. And he worried.


	3. Unspoken Confidences

“I've been thinking,” said Martin hesitantly, on the first rest from the morning's planting. “About a few of the things I've been reading.”

“So the sun must have set in the west last evening,” said Mother, cuffing his cheek. “What in particular?”

“Autobiography of a general in the Four-Score War – transcribed in the original archaic forms by some stickler, but I've been managing by context, and it's bringing to mind a few of last winter's books, too. Memoirs, war journals... They don't always remark on the fact, but... when, if they have nightmares, it seems they... they get _better,_ in time.”

Mother didn't answer, only bent down to scrape mud off the top of her boots.

Father was still in the cabin. He had had another sleepless night, the third in four days. He was too exhausted to work, but still couldn't get himself to sleep for any length; Mother had all but forced a sleeping potion down his protesting gullet just before dawn, and even then the rest did not look to be an easy one.

“He won't look me in the eye,” Martin pressed on, less comfortably than before. “But sometimes, when he does, did, I see he's, he's... hiding something. Frightened of me. Frightened for me. Frightened of being frightened, and I remember it wasn't always _like_ this, and... I can't imagine what it was, to be a Battlemage during the purges. But it's not the war haunting him. Or not only the war. Is it?” He was giving his mother as level a gaze as he could manage, given she still had a foot on him in height.

Mother held his gaze, sadly. “I don't know everything, but I know it'd be worse for him if you knew, Martin. It'd be better if he got himself out of this rut he's in, altogether.”

But it wasn't a rut, he wasn't thinking about the same thing over and over. It wasn't only deepening, it was _shifting_ , too.

Father was terrified to speak, and Mother honored his wishes, and even Brother Jauffre, who'd known him for longer than anyone, had answered Martin's question on his last visit by saying a man had to have a few things private to him.

It didn't matter. The nightmares were destroying him. Martin would find the cause, in whatever way was left to him. And if he was careful, maybe he'd find it without Father knowing he knew.

 

* * *

 

 

If there were other Battlemages in the county to ask of the Simulacrum Wars, then they were keeping to themselves as well as Father himself was. His study bore no reward, not even over the winters, when there was little else to do but study. This did not mean the endeavor had no point – how often, in his reading, had a few separate, disconnected references resolved themselves into a vivid picture at a stroke? But any answer remained elusive.

Getting Father's mind turned to something else did have effects, temporary though they were. Morning Star had had mild weather that year, and for a lark they had set out for half a week to find Pale Pass. Any notion that they were anywhere close was purely imagined, and they had to chafe under Mother's walking pace, but in the sharp dry air, the hike and the camp, the fairly facetious comments on the surroundings, it was as though Father were years more vigorous, as though Martin were really seeing him for the first time.

More regrettable where Martin was concerned was his poor treatment of Tourmal, the shepherd's older daughter, when she began dogging his every step. When he told how upset he'd made her, he'd been treated to a lecture, mortifying enough to be almost eternal, on matters of love, in which Martin was frogmarched through a foreign, half-comprehensible idiom, told that every hint at love before seventeen was going to be a false start and he was obligated to fall on his face for it regardless, and Father had at one point had to stop himself and clarify that however it had come out, he wasn't trying to recommend that Martin find a woman just like his mother. Father was better for it, for a time, but for months it was all Martin could do to speak in Tourmal's presence without cringing.

At times, Martin could almost convince himself the decline would subside on his own. Never entirely, never for long. By the time he was fourteen, Martin had found a road that might lead toward the answer. Though a discomfiting road it was.

The day had begun well enough, a breezy summer morning without much work to be done. Whispers had come down the road that Talin, the Eternal Champion himself, was in the city.

He came from the north of Valenwood, where an almost Colovian mode of humility was said to prevail. But Talin had been a courtier before he set on the trail for the Staff of Chaos, and a courtier he remained. He would not talk about himself unasked, but given outside prompting he felt himself perfectly entitled to bask in his own good light. If anyone had both the knowledge and the will to tell what nightmares might come from the Simulacrum, it was Talin.

Martin drew the day's water, prepared brine for the fisherman's visit on Morndas, and then began the walk up the mountain, leaving only a note of intent to buy nails in town. When it came to spoken questions and the evasions that would no doubt follow, Father was so alive to the signs of deception that Martin couldn't consider asking his permission for a moment.

* * *

To see Talin again, to show his savior just how much of himself never made it back to Mundus... it made his stomach twist with dread to anticipate, but even so, Julius did have to chuckle at Martin's note. The fence  _did_ need repair; it was just the errand he would have sent Martin off on if he hadn't set off himself at the very moment.

* * *

 

It wasn't long before Martin entered Bruma that he learned Talin was already gone by the south gate; the usual summer gaggle milling about the statue of Tiber Septim could talk of nothing else.

“Lost sight of him on the plain, though--” said a dark young Imperial in Fighter's Guild issue.

“How can you _lose sight_ on the _plain?_ ” demanded old Gerthe.

“Well, after he climbed down the--”

That went to explain why he hadn't encountered anyone who might have been Talin on the road. It also made the chance of an encounter slim to none.

“All right, but is anyone going to tell me _why_ he was here?” cried a teenage Nord, her face blotchy with frustration.

“Jerall View,” said the fighter, ticking off his fingers. “The chapel, the castle, the Mages' Guild, even the old north road... I don't like to go in for the boring answer, but I expect he was seeing the sights.”

“Besides, if it were anything exciting, do you suppose he'd tell the likes of _us?_ ” added a broad-nosed youth in the robes and hood of a mage's apprentice.

“ _Yes!”_ said the girl emphatically. “He's not the shy and retiring sort, or didn't you hear what he did at the Arboretum?”

“All right,” said the fighter, “but supposing he's not done with the job yet...”

“What _did_ he do at the Arboretum?”

Martin's stomach turned to think of it, but the fact was he stood scant chance of catching Talin up. He headed for the general store to make good on his excuse.

The next Martin heard of Talin, he had died of drink in his bed after a soiree in Cheydinhal. Father confined himself to the shed that day, and the next; whether he was paying his respects as a Battlemage, or the nightmares were wearing harder than usual on him, Martin never knew. But, after the first disappointment, the chance to speak with the Eternal Champion never felt real enough to be missed.

And not half as real as what came in the night.

As he descended the hill and passed the rest of the day, there was an ill-defined vexation nagging at him that only grew stronger as the day progressed. In the end he decided it was frustration, temper – that was becoming an increasing problem, as the lines blurred between where his father ended and his father's nightmares began, and the near miss in the city couldn't help matters – thought a bit of sleep on his own part might cure it.

He found himself standing on a hot, shifting slope, pieces falling away like hastily-formed sandstone, under a sky like red coals. Unevenly across the landscape, spikes of rust-tipped iron curled from the ground, massive as mammoths' tusks. Dust choked everything. But ahead, beneath the dust, he could see cobblestones. The path downward broke off in a lake of fire. He moved upward, then. Vague shapes in the hazy distance resolved themselves into half-flayed, naked corpses, the anguish still visible in their faces – he began running – he saw a vast ruin ahead, the rubble of its walls caved inward, and beyond, almost a whole wall, worked into a graceful, vaulting shape-- chapel-- and crumbling tiers beyond--

this was _Bruma--_

and cries of despair still rang from within the ruined walls--

He woke, then, stomach roiling, pressed his palm against his mouth and bit it hard to keep from crying out. The pain was real, his home and bed were real. But the dream seemed just as real, even so.

He had had dreams like that before. But they had been things one might confuse with reality. Now the baseline of dream-reality was shifting.

Shifting, like the ground under his father's feet. Like one's footing in a Quagmire.

* * *

 

He was certain that was the answer. That, during the Wars, Vaermina, Prince of Nightmares, had laid a curse on his father and his line. But now that such a curse was laid, how could it ever be revoked?

When he was fifteen, nightmare burst forth into the waking world, and abstract concern was laid abruptly aside.

It was too late for a potion. It would have emptied out the strongbox, but they would have paid the price, if Mother hadn't forbidden it, if she hadn't imagined she'd tough it out.

Perhaps, if Martin had told that he'd dreamed about this illness when he was a child, over and over.

But she was firm - it was too late now. The disease had gone too far, and she would drown in it.

Martin and his father let the crops fend for themselves. They kept their vigil, brought her anything that might give her comfort, kept silent about what would not. Lemon-mint tea, she drank. The book she was half through...

“Julius, I'm in no state – head's all thick and pounding – and if I were, I'd still rather spend the hours – with _you,_ not – in bloody 2920...” Between the coughing spasms her smile was faint and firm, and Martin knew – knew, with that lightning-bolt of certainty – that she believed it was _her_ duty to be the comforter, that Martin and his father were depending on her. And that shadow of great secrets, which Martin had known so often in Father's eyes but never seen for certain in hers, was cast over it all.

“Cilla.” Father's voice was sodden ashes. “You don't need to choose. You sent out to the capital for this, and I'd have you finish.” And he turned the book to where the ribbon lay and began to read. The words of it, the historical fancies, washed over Martin without a trace, leaving only the Arkaean rite, and Father's determination to carry it to the end.

The worst that could have happened is that before she died, he would have looked foolish. He would have forgotten it then. He would give anything to have looked foolish and bankrupted the household.

“ _As they watched him ride out into the rainswept south towards, towards Black Marsh--_ ” Something spasmic crossed his face and he hurled the book against the floor. At the noise of it, Mother's eyes fluttered dully open.

“Afraid I missed a... good bit of that.” The words were the same as ever. The voice was like the wind through autumn's grass. “No sense doing a retread – Julius, Martin – want you to know – you'll do everything you need to, both of you will, so don't act like...” Her mouth moved after that, but no sound came out, and her lips were too stiff to read, and she soon drifted to sleep again. Martin never saw the seam between life and death.

But he saw his father's eyes, as he sat slumped in his armchair, before he dragged himself up to speak with the undertaker. The grief was beyond bearing in them, but they spoke almost as loudly of the old dreads and secrets, darker and heavier by far with no one living to confide them in.


	4. Downward Slope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shows me to promise things too far in advance. This chapter has come a full week later than I swore it would. Sorry, Lumi, will not do that to you again!
> 
> Short and sweet wound up the way to go here. Long and complicated will probably be the rule from now on, but for what it's worth, long and complicated doesn't seem to make the writing crawl any worse than usual.

Father glanced at Martin when he stepped through the cabin door, then swiftly jerked his gaze away. “You've shaved,” he said in disappointment – a tone that would be positively _stricken_ if it came from anyone else, but for Father, Martin had to make allowances.

“I had to,” said Martin, hoping he sounded more gentle than he felt. “Two months on, it still looks as though I'm cultivating some rare specimen of moss on my face.”

Father gave a very forced laugh. “Well. Perhaps it'll do better in a year or so.” He turned abruptly toward the cookfire. “I hope you don't mind perpetual stew for supper? We've got reasonably fresh bread in.”

“Well, no,” said Martin. “No, I _don't_ mind, but...” But it wasn't an offer of stew. It was that flinch, again, as though Father were a beaten dog and it was Martin doing the beating. “Only – I was wondering if we might have a spar tomorrow evening, if we've got the energy for it. I've been missing those.”

“We'll see,” said Father, so shortly that there was no chance the answer would be yes tomorrow. There had been little enough chance of it in any event – the matches had happened only three times in the two years since Mother's death, and none of them had been especially instructive.

But now Martin knew for sure.

“I've been considering Battle College,” he said carefully. “To further my--”

Father's head whipped back and stared with an unmistakable note of terror. “No.”

“Whyever not?” Now he knew he sounded churlish.

Father closed his eyes wearily. “I have been a Battlemage. You have not. You cannot possibly understand the danger--”

“But I do,” said Martin quietly. “Father, I've been having nightmares too.”

Father swayed and steadied himself against the sturdy mass of the table, kneaded his forehead for a moment that seemed entirely too long. “If so,” he said at last, “then Battle College is the last place you need to be. You will need to trust me. Martin... do you think twenty is very many?”

What sort of question was that? Why was it asked so plaintively? But when Father went into one of these strange moods, he could only strive to meet it with his best attempt at reason. “It's – well, precious few potatoes, a good many to get in a brawl with at one go--”

Father blanched as though actually imagining it.

“The point is that all depends,” said Martin hastily.

“Years, Martin. I meant _years._ ”

“Well, it's nothing at all, ah, historically. I suppose when I was a child, it seemed a great many; now--”

Belatedly, he realized the probable reason for Father's question.

“Yes, Father,” he said bitterly. “The Simulacrum's been over twice as long as it went on and twenty years is quite enough time for you to get over yourself. I won't be having any stew, thank you.”

He seized a book at random from the shelf, set himself on the floor with the immovability of a boulder, and walled himself from any further utterance the wraith in the room might make. He'd surely be better in the morning, and he was beyond reason now, so really it made no matter.

* * *

 

 

The fact remained, of course, that Martin would need to protect himself. And the fact remained that Julius could not do the instruction. How many times had he turned back to the fateful moment in Ria Silmane's office, refought that battle so he would find time to flee – prevent Ria's murder, cut short the usurpation, never have the first glimpse of Dagon's designs – how many times had he run the paces in his mind? Martin's face was so like Uriel's...

The Imperial Battlemages would know that, too. The Battlemages worked with the flower of aristocracy, and the nobles would be fools not to take notice. He could be made Mirror to Geldall or Enman. A bodyguard, a faithful one, to men whose murder was written in the stars.

Still, the fact remained. It hung like an icy mist about him, when he walked through driving ice-wind and when he huddled by the fire. One day, Martin would need to defend his own life, and the day did not seem so distant any more.

Cilla would know the course. If only he could hear her.

* * *

 

The Mages' Guild!

Days since Father had suggested it, Martin still savored the thought. He had feared he'd be shipped to the Fighters' Guild, that he'd be barred from any way to find the nature of Vaermina's curse. He had feared that he would be bound to this turnip patch until he died, or followed his father into madness. But it was the Mages' Guild. The Associates of the Mages' Guild lived at Arcane University, and Arcane University boasted the most exhaustive library he ever stood a chance of seeing. There would be instruction on Conjuration – Father had never been adept at that – and where there was knowledge of Conjuration, there was knowledge of Oblivion.

It was a way out. A way out of the nightmares. A way out of this cabin, that stifled him in its silence and fear. A way from his father's increasingly unwelcome company.

He would say none of this. It was enough to leave the farm, to pursue a passion he'd had nearly as long as he could remember. He certainly did have to offer his thanks. He approached the hearth, touched Father's shoulder--

Lightning-quick, Father threw himself to the floor rolling, uncoiled, sent a shower of ice shards toward his legs that he escaped only because he'd leapt back in pure shock.

He got to his feet, stood automatically in readied stance – ready? for what? – and kept his eye to the form of his father, still in prone position, stock-still on the floor.

“Martin?” His voice was like a taut, quavering thread, painfully uncertain.

“Yes. Yes, Father, it's me.”

He sank entirely into the floor, trembling, squeezing his eyes shut. “Go. Pack your things, take my coin, go to the University. Please. Go now.”

No more words of farewell than that. Not even the barest glance to say goodbye.

* * *

 

At the point just before the farm receded behind the bend, Martin turned back.

“For you, Father,” he murmured against a driving wind. The view was a shimmering haze, as it was in the desert dream, and he was standing where the lake of fire would be.


	5. Bridges

“Gone,” said Ormarson, letting Jauffre in. Overly gaunt, a bit weary, but no moreso than the last time Jauffre had visited. He looked like a man who'd set aside a heavy pack after years of travel; at a loss, but at the same time relieved of a burden. “Arcane University. Good timing, too, as I had little enough to teach him by then. I've got venison haunch and leeks over the fire, if you'd like.”

“Certainly. Thank you.” Venison had been a constant, monotonous staple in the Skyrim wilds during the Simulacrum, and the savor of the dish had long since worn off before the first year was out, but for that reason, he hadn't touched the stuff since the day their scout came back from Riften with word of Uriel's return. Common courtesy aside, it might actually taste all right again.

“You – won't let that keep you from visiting, I hope?” A desperate plea, without any inflection to cloak it. After all this time, Jauffre still found himself disarmed, now and then, to see that Julius Ormarson, who'd saved Jauffre's life by his conspicuous absence from the Palace, who'd likely enough saved the _Empire_ by the way he chose to get on Tharn's bad side, and who was more than sharp enough to know both those things, could have been so... damaged in the process.

“It certainly will,” said Jauffre blandly. “This is the last time I'm ever coming by. The first five years I knew you? Simply looking for windows of opportunity in which I might foist a baby upon you.”

Ormarson met his eye and smiled a bit at that, but then he turned his face away, and his eyes were shut tight. “It could have been anybody else, Jauffre. Anybody. It doesn't matter that he'd have been a foundling, it's not an uncommon condition, and I tell you anybody could have done better by him, because I tell you _any-bloody-damned-body_ you could have found would have had a damned sight fewer ghosts to reckon with.”

Jauffre saw, shunted roughly in the corner behind Ormarson, four empty wine bottles.

Ormarson followed his gaze and grunted. “Helps with the dreams. Likely enough the dreams are still there, but half a bottle at night and I can't remember it in the morning. Believe me – if you'd seen me sober, these last few months...”

Jauffre sighed. “Do me a favor, Ormarson.”

“Don't jump off the same bridge the Eternal Champion did?” said Ormarson sardonically.

That was, indeed, a fairly good representation of what Jauffre had been about to say.

Which apparently showed on his face. “Martin told me the same thing, when I first tried it. After Cilla. He knew it was a low blow, too – if not just how forceful it was – which means he has better excuse than you. No, no, you both mean well enough. But all the same, I shouldn't have listened to him.” He stepped abruptly toward the cookpot.

As soon as they'd both settled at the kitchen table, Jauffre looked him dead in the eye. “It might interest you to know that every time I've left this house – I won't pretend the past few years haven't been difficult for you, Ormarson, but that doesn't make this any less true – one thing I've always come away thinking is what a stroke of luck it was that Martin could have you for a father.”

Ormarson looked down at his plate as though nothing could be more tragically mistaken, but Jauffre, after a bite of venison that turned out to evoke every inch of the fatigue he'd hoped against, pressed on notwithstanding.

“He's got all the education of any good noble, but I've never known the nobleman's son who could manage to be so... consistent when it comes to meaning well. Set him beside the Emperor's sons, for instance.” (The two of them, never having been strictly informed of Martin's origins, made a paper-thin but protocol-adherent exercise of pretending he could have come from anywhere.) “Prince Enman's honest enough, but he hasn't got the inclination to take charge of so much as a tame rabbit. The other two... well, I wish Uriel a very long life, and let's leave it at that. Whereas Martin – Martin is a prince in the colloquial sense. And don't think for a moment you have nothing to do with it.”

Ormarson didn't appear cheered. He didn't appear to be objecting, either. He'd seemingly drifted away as Jauffre spoke, and the reverie seemed a painful one. _Fearful_ , too.

“He's... he's a better judge of character than Uriel. I hope that'll suffice. I hope – he learns everything he _needs_ to know, everything I couldn't teach him. But keep an eye on him. Watch over him...”

Jauffre closed his eyes at the repetition of the past tense. “A moment ago, I told you, in essence, that you've _given_ Martin everything he needs. He has much to learn, but at his age, that can't be avoided. And, Ormarson – it's not over now that he's gone. You _have_ a life ahead of you, and as for Martin – he'll want to be your equal when he returns, but you'll see him again soon enough, and I warrant he'll still listen to you.”

“No.” The word seemed wrenched from Ormarson's mouth. “I don't mean to die any time soon, if that's a worry of yours. But I can _never_ see Martin again, Jauffre. I won't try to make you understand. You must have noticed I'm less than soundly hinged, and I'll have that suffice. But you must know _Martin is not safe._ Ask Uriel. Ask our master. Ask him what happened in the pit, and you will have your answers. For my part, I have no stomach to speak of it any more.”

 

* * *

 

 

Uriel had not been any more forthcoming than Ormarson had been, but the chief point had been the same. Shortly, Jauffre dispatched a messenger to Cloud Ruler, instructing that two covert Blades whose cover identity lay in the Imperial City maintain observation on a student named Martin Ormarson, and protect him at the extremity.

 

* * *

 

 

Martin left the high road as soon as he was able. A lone walker, barely armored, with a gold pouch packed to outweigh his sword, and all right, he hadn't been bad at the sword, but as he hadn't tested his skill against an opponent in... in any event, the high road violated all sense. He could make do with wild roots and wayward rabbits until he arrived, and the finding of them helped, somehow, to turn his thought more toward his future. All the while the White-Gold Tower, peering out wherever the cliffs and trees allowed, threw off all sense of scale, so it seemed that Martin was on the City's doorstep long before he ever saw the shore of Lake Rumare.

And when he did – when the whole City unfolded before him – the grace and symmetry of it brought an ache to his heart. (And a backwater slack to his jaw. He reminded himself that such beauty was hardly uncommon to Ayleid structures, and that if he knew the purpose for which they had built this behemoth, it would almost certainly mar the effect. There, now he didn't look half so much like prey.)

On similar grounds, he mustered all the will he could not to take in any of the sights, but make straightaway for the Arcane Tower.

It happened that Arch-Mage Sinderion (or, at least, the beleaguered-looking junior scholar delivering his messages) would gladly take on a pupil at any time, but it was likely best for a new Associate to come in ten days, when the next cycle was formally begun. Martin, taking this as a challenge, admitted himself at once, but found the first practical Conjuration course he stumbled across to be explained in what seemed to be perfect gibberish. Frustrated, and not a little ashamed of falling short, he withdrew to the All-Saints Inn for the next two weeks' bread and board.

He did, in the end, walk every thoroughfare of the city. He saw what he could, but found what he could concentrate on was little enough. He fretted over the gold in the inn's strongbox, wished the tombs and statuary were better-marked, attended Temple services with the Dragonfires shimmering and undulating in a way that made him markedly queasy, and once, guiltily, mustered up some coin for _First Edition_ , only to excuse himself in a miserable coward's shuffle on seeing a gleaming, fresh-bound copy of _2920_ just past the doorway.

It might have been the aimlessness, when he was so accustomed to toil. It might have simply been the wait. But in any case, when the day dawned that he might pass the University gates, it was as though he'd had a cool, clear breath for the first time in days of stale air.

 

* * *

 

 

“The last known such soul gem,” declaimed Master Traven, his face remaining as soft as his rhetoric had become hard “- indeed, it is likely safe to call it the last altogether – was destroyed, as remnants often are, rather anticlimactically. In the twenty-sixth year of the Third Era, students of the Anvil College found it in the undiscovered cubby of an otherwise ransacked Ayleid well, and destroyed the foul object without ceremony. From that day forward, necromancers have had to content themselves with the desecration of the mortal body; they cannot assail our souls. And so, nearly a century after the founding of the Guild, it may be said that Galerion's life's work was truly completed. Now, before we reconvene next week, I advise you to consult the Mystic Archives for-- yes?”

Martin, having stood from his bench, said, “I only wanted to be sure that this _is_ the Guild History lecture?”

“Yes,” said Traven in clarion tones, against a few audibly suppressed giggles from the back benches. “Whatever the current state of affairs, this _is_ the history of our guild. Now then--”

“Well,” whispered the lanky, tousle-haired Nord boy just behind Martin's left shoulder. “I see you've got the measure of _Conjurrer Trraven_ already.” He trilled the R's as though reciting _Mannimarco King of Worms_.

“He doesn't seem to evade measurement much. But – you say he practices Conjuration?”

“No, his main field is Destruction and – oh, I follow you. No, that's just a rank title.”

Martin supposed he ought to be relieved. There had to be conjurers in the College, and it was just as well Traven wasn't to be consulted on the matter.

“I suppose if we had a lot of scholars running about calling themselves _the Destroyer,_ ” the boy went on,“people might at least take the Guild more seriously.”

“Scholars would get mucked up with provincial warlords in the histories,” suggested Martin, as the crowd ebbed around them.

“They'd remember Traven with two-foot horns on his helmet, screaming from a twenty-foot steed waving a warhammer forged from his own soul...”

Martin cringed inwardly, but knew pointing out everything wrong with that sentence would throw a perfectly good rapport to the wind. “So he really is as obsessed with necromancy as he looked, then,” he said instead. “Don't they _teach_ necromancy here?”

The boy grinned. “Why do you think I was hanging about at an Associate's lecture?” (He couldn't be more than sixteen, but his robes were, nonetheless, those of a full apprentice. Well, after all, magic wasn't as fixed to the physical as farmwork or swordplay. With magic the predominant fact of life on this island, Martin would need to take care not to make assumptions.) “Usually some prospective necromancer gets assigned to Traven; always a show worth watching. You'd think necromancers killed the man's extended family, the way he carries on.”

“To be fair,” said Martin, “I can't see one getting too far in necromancy without killing _someone's_ relatives.”

“Outlaws. It all works out. Giskel, by the way.”

“Martin. I... need to get going to the Archives, though.” He paused, his hand on the bench. “Did you happen to catch what we were meant to research?”

Giskel shrugged. “It wasn't my assignment. Ask Traven. He doesn't mind saying things twice. Unusual for a bandit prince, but perhaps that's why the necromancers spared him...”

 

* * *

 

 

_Requesting inquiry as to significance of surname Ormarson._

 

* * *

 

 

_Ormarson: Emperor's Mirror, the only such to have survived the Simulacrum. Long since retired, to the best of current intelligence. Respond at once._

 

* * *

 

 

_A false sign. Retirement evidently continues. Expect another fourth by Tirdas as recompense._

 

* * *

 

 

Martin had spent the whole of the first week in an effort to immerse himself wholly in his studies, and any study of the daedra and Vaermina he could drum up. Some of it, to his chagrin, was entirely beyond him – he learned there were two distinct forms of the daedric tongue, the High and the Common, but not what the forms signified, or how to go about learning either. Some was profoundly unhelpful – it transpired, for instance, that, decades of major and ongoing research developments notwithstanding, a second edition of _On Oblivion_ had never been released. As for the keeper of the Mystic Archives, it was clear the bleary old man was invested in nothing more but a good, warm seat until the day he died – one of a growing number of mundane details it seemed Arch-Mage Sinderion couldn't be torn from his research to address.

But mostly, it was the solitude that crept in on him. In the dormitory, he had already cemented himself as an unspeaking piece of furniture moving in and out as needed. The loneliness had become exhausting as the worst company in Bruma County never was, and in still moments, by fire or candle or the full light of day, his thoughts drifted inexorably away from the book before him and back to his home. Rehearsing lessons in what Father called “Practical Etiquette” even as the day's work was being done. Spirited debates with Mother about the age-old Hammerfell disputes. The day he exhausted the last spell-tome in the house. And always, hanging over all, Father on that last day, a wounded wolf before the hearth.

It was something like a physical relief to spot Giskel lounging on the ledge of the alchemical gardens, absently paring down a thistle stem with the back of his fingernails.

“Ah,” said Giskel in mild surprise. “Martin, wasn't it? Thought you'd left us.”

“Well... no,” said Martin, nonplussed. “I haven't so much as crossed into the city. Do Associates often leave without ceremony?”

“Often enough, in the first moon or so, and Arch-Mage Sinderion won't precisely break an arm stopping them. There's more to life at Arcane than magic, or we'd have sunk into the lake centuries ago.”

Martin cocked his head. “I thought magic was rather the point of the place.”

Giskel shrugged in easy concession. “Mainly, I mean that anybody who's anybody is an eccentric. Or at least a bit off. Good thing my parents didn't realize that, or they wouldn't have sent me here to be respectable... I mean, obviously there _are_ plenty of respectable people from Arcane, and even from the higher Guilds, but the key word there is _from._ Stay in more than a decade, and guaranteed you'll be conducting experiments on the breeches you're wearing.”

“I take it you don't actually plan on being respectable?”

“No, I plan on teaching. Easy. Asks for the same skill as a Council seat, but never a dull moment. How about yourself?”

Even if he were willing to give his life's story on such short acquaintance, one couldn't precisely answer _teaching_ with _loosing the hold of a Daedric Prince on my bloodline._ It would hardly be one-upmanship on his part, but that wouldn't prevent it from seeming that way.

“I'm a farmer,” he said, holding his palms up. “Almost anything would have higher status; I'm not too concerned.”

Giskel laughed. “All right, but what's your family really?”

“Farmers.” Martin smiled, genuinely. “Which is a poor excuse not to keep a few books about.” (That was a favorite proverb of Mother's, but he'd been marked a milk-drinker among the city boys for months after attributing it as such – and not, strangely, after publicly drinking milk the fortnight before. Father, with an unwarranted level of amusement, had explained that cow's milk had nothing to do with the matter.)

“There you are, giving significant looks to the grass again.” (Martin raised his eyes sheepishly.) “For a farm boy with no particular concerns, I hope you know you've got _mysterious stranger_ and _very concerned with something_ written all over your face in bright green ink.” Giskel grinned, plainly enthralled by the thought.

“Putting the Associates to the torture _again_ , Giskel?” said a voice behind him, which turned out to belong to a Redguard woman about his age, almost as tall and broad as a carthorse.

“Always need another specimen in the... _collection,_ ” said Giskel, making a bad attempt at a fiendish smirk behind stubby, steepled fingers.

“All right, we'll come back to collect him. But how are you getting on with the Shiftless segment?”

“Strange as it must ring on your ears, Praneh, I've actually got it done. The sheaf's still wedged somewhere in my nightstand, I think.”

“Quote it,” said Praneh at once.

Giskel closed his eyes, folded his hands at the small of his back, and humphed softly before beginning. “ _When otherwise in doubt, choose a High Elf for an instructor. They are uncommonly accomplished wizards who have long since forgotten how they got that way, with the result that you will gain a maximum of credit for the barest modicum of actual coursework. The great exception is, of course, Wizard Caranya (see Dramatis Personae), but then if you have the option of enrolling with her in the first place, you have clearly tried too hard already._ ”

Martin smiled at Praneh's obvious surprise. “Then I take it there's a segment in... whatever it is you're doing... for those of us who _do_ want coursework?”

“That's my purview,” said Praneh. “The Insufferable header. Giskel and I have been writing what we know, more or less. I _might_ have seen the problem inherent in that...”

“I _did_ finish it,” Giskel pointed out.

“All right, all right. In full, Associate, it's _A Wary Traveler's Guide to the Treacherous Paths of Arcane Study._ Should have enough copies for the whole island to keep soon enough. _”_

“You're arranging this with the Black Horse Courier, then?” Martin could think of no other way to accomplish such a feat within a party of two.

“We would,” said Praneh, “if they knew the first thing about binding. No, it'll be a sort of duplication spell after we've bound the first copy. None of the duplicates could get more than halfway across the bridge, but overall it should hold, so long as no one does anything stupid with the original.”

Martin blinked. “So – do you suppose _that's_ what became of the Vanishing Repositories in the Crystal Tower? There was an original copy, and someone scrawled overmuch in the margins, or broke the spine or whatnot? That _would_ explain the reports of early vanishings between floors...” And the notion was far more pleasing to entertain than the usual sinister conspiracy theories involving Uriel VI.

Giskel sighed, with a knowing glance at Praneh. _“Definitely_ your column _.”_

“Yes, he's getting a copy for certain,” said Prana, grinning toothily.

“But if you want a word of advice _now,_ ” said Giskel, “you've probably got Hayn, haven't you?”

“No, actually.”

“Well, you will soon enough. He teaches basic courses in every competency, and unfortunately coursework is the only way by which you'll really pass them. But you look like you'll do all right with that, so... maintain a good, level pole up your arse, and he might put in a good word for you when you apply to the Psijic Order. As is surely inevitable.”

“Forgive me,” said Martin carefully. “What is it that you said I'm meant to maintain?”

Giskel clamped his lips into his mouth, but couldn't keep from emitting a string of fervent giggles though his nose as his face steadily reddened.

“What Giskel here is trying to convey,” said Praneh, “is that you _probably_ don't need to worry about pleasing Hayn. But what discipline did you want for a focus? Er, if any.”

“Conjuration,” said Martin, doing his best to appear offhand about it.

“Oh,” said Praneh. “Not my area, but in this case it doesn't need to be. That would be Seif-ij Hidja. Trusted assistant to Morian Zenas himself, and he'll make sure you don't forget it. Lately, he's off somewhere attending to the trusted-assistant matters, but he'll be back to Arcane by the time you've met his qualifications, I'm sure. Well, if he doesn't get himself killed by doing whatever it is he's doing...”

Giskel shrugged. “He's an accredited Wizard. Think he'd be used to the danger by now.”

Martin, who had long assumed he'd be for the Fighter's Guild or the Battlemages if he joined a guild at all, gestured at Giskel as though presenting a fine performance done.

Martin was visited by his eerie sense for others by the time the three of them dispersed, but for once the experience was thoroughly comfortable: Praneh and Giskel both liked him, and, by the standard of his experience, even respected him. He would certainly meet them again.

By then, the sun was most of the way past the horizon and Martin was forced to read by candlelight. It was astounding how many here seemed to regard it as a terrible privation; the Archives had to have two dozen candles for the purpose, but only two besides his were lit, and one of those belonged to that Argonian girl without any area of study in evidence, unless you counted perusing and tidying the Archives themselves. Though he wasn't tired, not in the way he was after a day's work, there was a sort of dullness that kept the words from penetrating as well as they should. But as it happened, he did at least prove to understand the material well enough to satisfy Scholar-Instructor Thela, so he might have been too hard on himself, and he might indeed have spent his time plying his true course of study instead.

 

* * *

 

 

_Father,_

_I have arrived in the Imperial City without incident, and begun my lessons. While I fell short of the material of last term's end, I am surmounting the first strains of the first courses with ease, and I have found friends here already._

_I never told you as much – I am as stubborn as you, it seems – but my intent is to study Conjuration, likely for the same reason that you never cared for the subject. You have taught me better than you imagined, and I do, despite your effort, know what has befallen us. I will have the remedy, and I will conquer the nightmares. I swear it._

_In the meantime, the farm will no doubt need a helping hand. I have no doubt you could choose more wisely than I._

_Martin_

Of course, the merest thought as to how Father had taken it every time Martin had attempted to get to the root of his troubles dissuaded him from passing the message to a courier. He therefore tucked it at the bottom of his dormitory drawer, and wrote instead a short note assuring his safety before heading to the Archives. He would realize by the end of the week that he had never actually sent that one, either.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this 'fic is very much still a going thing.
> 
> First segment even more thoroughly stolen from the notes of luminare_ardua than usual.


	6. Honeyed Words

“Well, there's a rare sight. How've the Battlemages been treating you lately?”

“How was Geldall's week as lord and master, you mean.”

“Well, our future careers _do_ hinge somewhat on the question.”

“Fair enough. Special expedition. Didn't much care for it.”

“How so?”

“Can't say. Let's just say I'm glad the _formal_ succession papers are somewhere safe and dark.”

“You didn't want _Ebel?_ ”

“In a pig's eye. But Enman... all right, old Uriel VI would be very upset over in Aetherius, but there are worse things than Council rule.”

“And Geldall's one of them.”

“Well, Talos grant us his luck, we won't be answering to him.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the end of the first term, Martin did not warrant much in the way of professional favoritism. His studies, by and large, were quickly to be learned, so he spent little time on them, and showed exactly the amount of interest he felt. He was a solid student – or a bright underachiever, which got the same results but with more internal browbeating. The basic Conjuration mistress had pegged him as the latter. As the _Traveler's Guide_ might have told him, if he'd read it through before dispersing it everywhere, this mistress had a reputation for a stony gambler's face. Martin's bizarre insights had divined her attitude. He did not even realize it until he muttered some resentments about the matter, to Praneh's bafflement. (Unluckily, the mistress happened to have heard him. Luckily, she was already predisposed against him, and he was actually motivated to complete her course, so the matter turned out to be wholly surmountable.)

That was strictly a matter of the instructors, of course. The associates and apprentices liked him well enough. Tar-Meena, who was nearer a librarian than the man holding that title, thought of him as a fellow-soldier (and, by their soldiers' code, left him courteously alone). Steffan, a soldier of the City Watch, seemed to drag out his rounds whenever he passed.

But as for Scholar-Instructor Rufus Hayn, he was concentrating entirely on his podium, where he had rested his class notes. His only nods to the students' presence were in the words of his speech (entirely pre-written, by the sound of it) and the moments when he paused to brush his auburn bangs out of his eyes in order to keep reading it. There was, perhaps, time for Martin to turn his impression to a favorable one; a recommendation from Hayn might do him considerably more good than the Mystic Archives, which, on the rare occasions that they discussed the Quagmire at all, did so on an assumption of pre-existing knowledge.

Father had never had a good grasp of Conjuration – even as he was learning it, he had said. The more metaphysical studies of the daedra... well, so far as Martin was concerned, the bottom rungs were missing from that ladder. He had spent hours poring over the minutia of some account supposedly penned by a daedra before realizing that the rigid, unsubtle hierarchy described could not possibly exist in a realm so tempestuous as that of nightmares. If the account was genuine at all, he supposed it would need to be a new copy of a book dating to the Planemeld. Molag Bal had hierarchy and to spare.

That had been one of the greater successes coming from Martin's nights in the library.

But be it a lack of information or a lack of inborn talent, Hayn's recommendation might do a good deal to help Martin find what information he sought.

“And that, unglamorous as it is,” said Hayn, “you will find to make the very fundamental of your studies, and indeed your life.”

Martin realized, to his chagrin, that he had – again – been allowing his future plans to get in the way of his present concentration. He hoped he might pick up the nature of this fundamental again; it would be deepest ignominy to ask.

“For patience not only prevents accidents, it is necessary to any goal worthy of the name. The general is known for brief and glorious moments – yet how could he have them without knowing the forces to be reckoned with, the land and the people, the whole of military history to learn from? Without the patience to ascend the ranks, and show himself skillful at every quarter? And even at the culmination of so many years and trials, one rash action may rob him of his moment. The smith must be meticulous in building his business; the Blades agent, if he performs to excellence, will wait a long time indeed for his plaudits.

“Do not think the mage's trade an exception because our business is the bending of reality. Indeed, the bending often holds far more peril to the impatient than the rigid laws would have permitted. Let us never attend, then, to the annals of magical research without this thought in our minds.”

It seemed, in fact, that the man was so dedicated to patience that this concluded the opening lecture, and the history lessons would need to wait.

Perhaps he wasn't so serious about the principle as all that; it was common enough for the masters to overstate themselves in the opening speech. But if he were – and the word did hold him as stern – Martin could not very well anticipate help from this quarter.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you again for your reports last year.”

“Ah. I take it you've got some other tedious task for me?”

“Er, well. Yes, you've got me there. But I don't think you'll find it tedious this time. Have you ever been to the Imperial Archives?”

“Oh, how I wish. I won't have that pass for months yet.”

“Unfortunately, that's better than any of us.”

“Are you truly-- Urgh. _Why_ can't the Elder Council confine itself to diplomacy?”

“Not authorized to comment there, you're aware. Happily, the crisis is not an immediate one. But it is an inevitable one, if our information is correct. We believe a document in the heart of the Archives has been taken, and replaced with a forgery. That... that if the matter is not rectified, it virtually ensures a civil war.”

“I – yes, there are rumors – then there are those among you with the skill, the wisdom, to read an Elder Scroll without –”

“No, no, an ordinary document, in the metaphysical sense. After all, the forgery of an Elder Scroll would be a poor deception to anyone who _could_ read it!”

“Then – when I have my pass – what will I be looking for?”

“You'll know it when you see it, I think.”

“But--!”

“There's Blades contract work for you. Official work, too, more often than not – they give you a map, but they're absolute misers with the ink. But if it is what we think it is, you will know it when you see it. Please keep me informed – chances are good I'll be your liaison when the time comes.”

 

* * *

 

Sinderion's assistant Melina – not the same assistant Martin had seen at admittance; the Arch-Mage's assistants had a way of leaving notice out of sheer fatigue – was, amid futile disciplinary flurries and days-long expeditions for ingredients, the one to set the new apprentices to Alchemy. Each student was assigned a different potion at the beginning of the lecture. Martin's was invisibility.

Alchemical Illusion. There was a school of magic he was sure not to need. Father was the greatest illusionist he knew, and that was no answer to Vaermina. Invisibility was a power that even his ordinary nightmares regularly robbed him of.

His thoughts turned, then, to his last visit to the red desert wastes. It had been Arcane Tower. It had been mercifully brief. He had not recognized any of the bodies, but there had been red, pulsing masses by the steps; he knew not what they were, had no wish to know, but he couldn't tear his thoughts away...

And so, at the end of the lecture that ought to have elucidated for him his formula, he found himself with an incomplete list of ingredients, no mention at all of proportions or instruments, and a mandatory course in danger at what should have been the easiest point.

Keeping his panic to a dull simmer, he walked to the row ahead of him; the girl there had, at least, seemed to be taking extensive notes from where he stood. She seemed startled and flattered to be asked, but agreed, quickly enough, to meet in the Archives after dark.

She had him sorted out quickly. Hurriedly, even. No drills to see if he'd mastered the principles – only the written formula, and special instructions on the use of an alembic.

“Then I've got you taken care of?” she said. She sounded a little wounded, but that didn't seem to fit the situation.

“Yes,” said Martin. “I _am_ a quick study.”

“Well... well, all right, then. But –” the next words came in a nervous rush – “could I have you read off the instructions again? Just to be sure!”

Martin carefully obliged. But her tone...

“So it's true what they say,” she breathed, her warm brown eyes staring deep into his. “You could read off a _catalogue,_ and all the girls would still--”

Her breath was deliciously warm on his throat--

Martin never knew whose lips met whose first. But it was he who pulled them both to the floor, and it was Yvette who thrust the first hand beneath robes, brushing his chest...

Well, it was a shame it couldn't have ended so well as it began, in that fleeting burst of ardor. Soon enough, Martin was left with a strong need to urinate, Yvette was left sitting ruefully, and the rug was a mess.

He got back into his robes, mumbling niceties, and shuffled off for the practice rooms to make his potion.

 

* * *

 

Whenever they met thereafter, Yvette would not meet his eyes.

“Sweet Dibella,” Giskel said pityingly, when Martin had confided his guilt in this. “What are you? Nineteen?”

“Eighteen,” said Martin, a bit defensively.

“And, er, Yvette?”

“I haven't the slightest idea. She... she takes good notes, and she thinks my voice to be a tremendous aphrodisiac, and that's, well, that's just about the extent...”

By this point, it was all Giskel could do not to fall off his bunk for laughing.

Martin grudgingly joined in. It _was_ fairly funny, now that he'd said it like that.

“And you said--” Giskel managed, once he'd got enough air – “you said it was a rumor going about all Arcane? That your voice is –” he pitched his voice to match Martin's bass – “a _tremendous_ aphrodisiac?”

Martin raised up his hands in a helpless shrug. “I... I think that was what she said. Yes.”

Giskel grinned, rolled his eyes, and flopped over into his bunk. “Mate, I'd kill to have problems like yours.”

 

* * *

 

Martin's first apprentice year continued apace. He tread water in courses with the feeling of marking time; he did the same in his visits to the Mystic Archives with something like the desperation of a drowning man; he found refuge from both with Giskel and Praneh. They made a proper band of rogues – proper because together, they were usually able to conceal it from those who didn't care for juvenile behavior. Praneh knew the geography and the people in it, Giskel had money enough for the three of them, and in any case, Martin usually found a twist of the tongue to get the three of them clear.

Usually. When they weren't so lucky, it at least made a story worth recounting.

In more than a few sets of eyes, Martin saw what he'd seen in Yvette's that uncomfortable night. Sometimes, it was the insight. That was coming on more and more frequently. Either way, he did not welcome them into his embrace. Insight or insight, it was likely enough he'd only make an abject fool of himself again. But there was something about the possibility, the _willingness_ of those around him, that filled him with yearning for... well, he wasn't quite sure what he was yearning for. But the desire was, unmistakably, there.

All that time, the desert dreams were on the wax. He was beginning to be a connoisseur of his own madness. The worst of them, so far, had taken him to Green Emperor Way. In the dream he had managed to avert his eyes, look away to the rusty ground, but there was a corpse there, the corpse of a woman in Elder Council robes. The flesh had been devoured from her hands. But he had kept his gaze fixed on her. If he looked elsewhere, he knew there would be worse, and at his very right shoulder there was the voice of a man screaming, pleading not to be taken to the Temple--

When he woke, all the sense Giskel could get out of him was him sobbing in raw incoherence. “I turned away, Giskel,” he'd said, trembling. “I gave him my shoulder, oh gods...”

Once he'd managed some pretense of knowing what reality was, he pretended to get back to sleep, and to remember none of it in the morning.

He had had the dreams a mere five years. What he had, Father must have fourfold. How long before the quest was pointless, before his father's mind was beyond saving?

Such questions simmered, closer and closer to the surface, until, midway through term, the vaunted conjurer Seif-ij Hidja returned from his travels.

 

* * *

 

Martin watched him arrive at a distance. He was a Crown through and through, his features porcelain-delicate yet unmistakably human, the bracelets on his right arm of western make. He carried a heavy load directly to his tower office, and there he stayed. Martin glimpsed him feverishly studying maps, or meditating with an intense look of concentration, when he glimpsed him at all. If Hidja emerged, Martin never knew.

By the third day of this, he knocked on the door.

By the fifth day, Hidja actually answered. “Persistence has its rewards,” he said with an indulgent sigh. “And at this stage, I fear I must wait on Morian Zenas for the final word as to the next step. And he does wish me to breathe the common air, once in a while. He is a great man. Even if it _is_ condescension to my weakness, it must surely remain wisdom.”

Martin, who had successfully bit back his amusement that Morian Zenas had indeed come up within Hidja's second breath, let it become a laugh at himself. “It doesn't come much commoner than me, I'm afraid, Master Hidja. Where Conjuration is concerned, I've got only the barest practicalities down. Shields to imps. Near as I can tell, there _is_ no course for basic grounding in the daedra themselves – there was a booklet describing their characteristics and their realms, but all else seems to be written for a much more extensive grounding. There _is_ Zenas,” Martin acknowledged, “though even his publication has not been expanded for--”

“You won't be the last to complain about that,” laughed Hidja. “He is, I fear, immovable. You are fortunate, you see, to be a novice. The explanations a novice is given do not test the limits of mortal comprehension, they do not drown you in peculiarities and anomalies, not unless you are a dunce – and you do not seem to be a dunce. What is your name?”

“Ormarson. Martin Ormarson.”

“Well, Martin Ormarson, I think you worth a chance. Whatever course the remainder of the project takes, there will be peril. We seek a safer road now, but of course no road is known before it is ventured upon. And the answer may come within the decade. If Zenas and I should both perish in the course of it, if nothing of his research, not even the broad brushstrokes, reaches another mind...”

“What is this project, then?”asked Martin, for the man was clearly dying to be asked.

“Now _that_ ,” he said, drawing himself up, “is a matter to be disclosed only at the end of the journey. And it is likely that there are aspects that must remain forever secret.”

And if that was what Hidja was itching to say upon being asked, Martin was only too glad to gratify him.

“But as for what things you wish to know – speaking in rules of thumb, not approaching the nucleus of understanding, as Master Zenas has, but neither being so gross as that wretched booklet - the treatment of the principalities alone – well, so far as novice's answers do, I can tell more than any disinterested party on Nirn.”

“You seriously imagine yourself uninterested?” chided Martin, lowering himself into a seat he was, at this point, unlikely to be offered.

“ _Disinterested_ ,” said Hidja in pedant's tones, following suit and perching on the desk. “Impartial. The cults likely have some special knowledge of their patron Princes and the realms they govern, but the trouble with cults is they like you to stay. Not exclusively, as a rule, but to be in a daedric cult is to take on daedric ways. A proper mindset of study cannot withstand it.”

“Well. The first thing I might ask, then – what is the distinction between High and Low Daedric? The function of each? Does that vary between Princes? How might one begin to learn the grammar--”

“Slowly, slowly,” chuckled Hidja. “The easiest of your questions concerns Low Daedric. That is a tongue better known as _Dunmeri_.”

Martin had a deep desire to smack himself across the forehead.

“You will be unsurprised to learn that Azura's followers use Low Daedric almost to exclusion,” Hija continued. “Some of the Princes do not insist even on that – Sanguine, for instance, seems perfectly content to be called on in mortal tongues. But daedric speech does have a way of setting your thoughts to the daedric plane.

“This is speaking, of course, of mortal entreaty. Deiphany – where the Prince himself initiates the dialogue – is something else again. By Master Zenas' theories, that, too, is Low Daedric. The subjects of deiphany seem, often, to lack the markers that typify the high form. But it is difficult to tell, particularly with the necessary lack of firsthand experience. In deiphany, the mortal has perfect comprehension of the daedric speech, and indeed may come away with no notion, save an unearthly sensation, that they ever used any tongue but their own.

“But _High_ Daedric – that is of Oblivion entirely, and there are reaches of Oblivion that demand it. Even the least of dremora under Dagon or Bal will converse in no other fashion.”

“You've – you've conversed with them?” said Martin. “I cannot imagine – what can be said in two minutes? And after what happened at Battlespire—”

Hidja waved a hand. “It is more like five minutes, at Zenas' side. It is good, too, to divine the essence of specific daedra, that the acquaintance need not be renewed each time the call is made. If the proper wards are made, of course! The acquaintance is, after all, mutual, and you are quite correct – things like the kyn of the Deadlands will take advantage, if allowed.”

Martin mentally filed that away as the most promising bit of information yet. He did not wish to look too eager about such a digression, though, and so said instead, “Then that book supposedly written by a daedra, in the Archives. Translated from the High Daedric, I take it?”

“By my very hand,” said Hidja, with a visible swell to his chest. He chuckled suddenly. “ _Why do you not despair_ , he asked. You know, as a youth, I did my first conjuring in a Skingrad garden. If he'd only seen that, after looking on his own world, he'd have had his answer, I think.”

“So,” summarized Martin hastily, “Low Daedric or less for those who welcome mortals; High Daedric for self-styled Kings of Rape and so on. But what of the capricious ones. Vaermina, or – or Mephala, say? Which form do they favor?”

Hidja tapped his cheek. “Those two make perfect counterpoints, actually. Daedra of Mepahala's realms – or Boethiah's – will welcome whatever first entreaty you make. That will be their manner of speech from then on – until you make a misstep. Then, you had better switch modes at once, or else dispel the conjuration. The trouble is, they delight in making it difficult to tell the misstep has been made. But the feeling of wrongness is always there, should you look for it.”

“Whereas Vaermina...?” prodded Martin.

“Whatever mode makes you the queasier is the correct one in which to address creatures of the Quagmire, and it may change for any reason, or no reason at all. The thing to watch for is the feeling of relief.” Hidja rose to fix some tea, beginning to prattle on about the intrinsic lack of coherence residing, at all aspects, in the Madhouse of Sheogorath.

“Then,” said Martin, at the first opening Hidja gave him, before he could get too far on his tangent, “then I had better study both forms. For the sake of completeness. How do I begin?”

“Such work is ordinarily carried out in the higher Conjuration school, in Chorrol –” he held up a hand against protest - “but I see no reason for such arbitrary rigidness in the order of study, unless it is plain uncomprehending fear of the whole subject. I will see about procuring some good primers from their library on the daedric tongues. Including mental wards. High Daedric is not to be touched, if they are not in place.”

 

* * *

 

So the way to the answer was made passable, and Martin lost many a night of sleep over Hidja's books plying that path. His friends knew, long since, about his nighttime studies. There was a good deal of speculation among them, but Martin kept mum, and they allowed him his privacy. But he was sure to make time for them in the day.

His attentiveness suffered, for the lack of sleep. But that mattered little.

There were many willing to fall into his arms. And he had found a way to put it to use.

In every course he floundered in, there was a girl who was better, and looked on him with starry eye. And so he courted them. To engage in “the Dibellan rites”, as Giskel liked to term them with a snort in his voice, was not only taking a needless chance, it was counterproductive in and of itself. Martin remained a prize yet unwon, and they would do anything for his favor. That certainly included such trifles as allowing him to review their lecture notes.

Felicia, whom he had relied upon for Alteration, demanded exclusivity within the month. He could not give it to her. But the next day, he saw her walking arm in arm with Giskel. Soon after, she was sitting on the garden wall with the rest. She was a gifted songwriter, a better singer, and a lovely addition to the circle.

Most of the others hoped to persuade Martin to join their own circles. But Trenna (Mysticism) and Sishara (Conjuration) joined his, and, remarkably, seemed quite amicable about sharing his affections. (“That might be putting it too strong,” clarified Praneh. “But they've both given it a good deal of thought, and decided it better to share you than to go without entirely.” She shook her head with an affable sort of incomprehension. “If that's their considered optimum, who am I to gainsay them?”)

At which point Martin was very glad he had never told Praneh his purpose in these flirtations.

But there was, even now, a deeper allure in all this gathering about him. Gradually, he came to know the name of that allure.

Power.

It was a curious form of it, to be sure. Martin's conquests called him friend. They paid tribute in flowers and jotted notes and kisses on the cheek. But ultimately, what swept him up, like sweet Skingrad wine, was that he was at the center of it all.

At times, then, it became difficult to tear himself away to the dark and the solitude of his daedric studies.

That was only the onset, though, as with an unpleasant chore. But once it began... the gain of knowledge, the knowledge he chose, the knowledge he so desperately wanted, made an intoxication all its own.

The wards, alas, did not keep away the nightmares. This curse was beyond what wards he knew.

As he progressed in his studies, thoughts of his father became slowly more ritual, and less real. His present company was good, and time was making its mark.

But he would write, he told himself. He would write when the key to the curse was in his grasp, no sooner. Because for all he knew, his writing might bring Father all the horror that his presence did. He might fear for Martin, try to dissuade him. He might be gibbering in Bruma's dungeons.

But these were rationalizations. The simple fact was that the pen had lain dormant for so long, and it seemed a greater and greater burden to take it up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note I wrote to Lumi, regarding a much earlier version of this chapter:
> 
> "I've half-written three different Naarifin scenes and not one of them is as painful as writing Martin in manipulative douche mode. I've told you character assassination is just the worst, but it turns out genuine character subversion tops it."


	7. Stumbling

“Ormarson, you ought to get home.” There was unmistakable pity in Old Olav's eyes. Poor old Julius Ormarson. Damn fine farmer, once. Never the same, since his wife died. Nothing to be done for him, really.

He nursed his brandy; Olav was clearly in no mood to offer more. No good to be done.

“The Count's put in for dried rations fit to feed an army. Winter's bound to be a hard one – best get used to early closings, friend.”

While the Count announcing such a thing did, indeed, bode ill for the winter, Julius was quite certain the Count did something of the kind every year. No one farmer was in a position to say so, but there were so many each year, throughout the year, from all quarters of North Nibenay, that the autumn markets might have taken up space from the south gate to the castle – if the produce was theirs to sell.

And, of course, there had been the visit from Talin.

For a brief time, that had been a good memory. He had _wished_ to dwell upon it. Increasingly, as the years wore on, he had no choice.

 

 

Cilla had arranged to be away shoring up the sheep-gate down the road. She left with that bland smile that knew perfectly well it'd hear everything soon enough.

It was an implicit promise that Julius would find he needed to break. He did not tell her the truth until her deathbed.

“Business, not pleasure, I'm afraid,” said Talin the moment he'd hung his traveling cloak and extravagant velvet hat on the pegs. “Of course if I _sought_ pleasure it would be somewhere out of county entirely. Only the Count himself seems to know how to throw a good party, and even _he_ doesn't seem to enjoy it. You used to count on his little girl to throw things out of joint, but she's long off to finishing school at some manor on the Bay, and she'll be a lot duller whenever she emerges, I expect.

“But that's no matter, Julius m'lad. I've come because I've heard you were a book man.” He surveyed the two-room cottage, grinning brightly – there were shelves bracketed to every wall. “I gather the grocer knew what he was talking about, eh?”

“I hope it's not out of order to thank you again for saving my life?” said Julius, when Talin stopped to breathe.

“Not at all, not at all! Though at this point it's the going first impression of me, don't you know, goes without saying. Quite the pad of laurels to rest on, if I wanted to. Which, by the by, I don't. Under review for the Blades – no, don't worry,” he said hastily at Julius' face, “I know _you_ can be trusted. As you were saying, we have after all met. Haven't got clearance for _their_ library, mind. But yours... no, it isn't bad at all. So the question's this: what do you know about the _Mysterium Xarxes_?”

Julius did find something familiar about the name, but he couldn't quite drum it up. Finally, he resigned himself to not remembering. “Not sure. But if it involves Xarxes, sir Talin, it sounds like a question for the Crystal Tower.”

“I've got a lifetime ban from _that_ place,” said Talin with a rueful laugh. “Tore it up seven ways from Sundas looking for that bloody Staff. But it may not matter. I don't think it's got all that much to do with _Xarxes_ , all told. Or anyway, if it does, the connection's rather... abstruse.”

“What's the topic, then? I might help you there.”

“Well, interesting story there, all told.” (Julius wished Talin would take a seat; his feet were beginning to ache.) “Blades captain sent me to the south of Valenwood, as I suppose one does with their Bosmer agents. I fulfilled my mission, which I can't talk about, and that's all right as it's not the most exciting thing I've ever done by a long shot – but on the way back, I was caught in an ambush. Gang with conjured armor. I mean, armor. Full sets, plus the weapons, all at once. Well, it wasn't much of an ambush, really – the conjuration's even noisier than it is impressive – but I did, all the same, want to know what it was about. Particularly since they acted as though I was doing them a _favor_ , killing them.

“So, I went through their purses and satchels. Well, one had a note saying the gang was expecting me, specifically. Another, she had a book. _Commentaries_ on the _Mysterium Xarxes_. Or part of it; anyway, I certainly hope it was a part, but the thing was raving enough that “Part One” might as well be some fever-wracked metaphor as an actual reference to other volumes kicking about. But did you want to guess the first word?”

A knot in Julius' gut told him he would really rather not. “Tharn,” he hazarded.

“I only wish.” Talin's voice had taken on an entirely serious cast now; he tilted his head up to look Julius directly in the eye. “Tharn, you know... say what you will of him, he had some basic sense of self-preservation. These fellows, no. But they _do_ use the same word he did.”

Julius shut his eyes tightly.

“Dagon, yes. Sorry to open old scabs and that; wouldn't do it if it didn't seem necessary. I, well – I think they're after Valenwood, for openers. And their philosophy might be worse yet. They don't like Dagon for the edge he can give them, they like him for, I don't know, for his dashing good looks and prepossessing personality. Fanatics, the lot. It's one thing to gauge by self-interest, but who can tell what a fanatic might do?”

Julius gazed at Talin, remembering him short of breath, with his ankle nastily turned and the Staff of Chaos in his right hand. And Uriel, Uriel touching the flagstones of the White-Gold Tower as though they were the finest, most delicate porcelain.

“Let me see it, Talin,” he whispered. “Let me see what you found.”

“Haven't got it. And you're not a Blade, besides. But, Julius, this _is_ my task now. Rather partial to the old jungle, you know. And rather good at what I do, if I say so myself. It'll come clear. Now then, what's that on the fire, and have you got spirits to match?”

From that point on, the visit went quite amicably. They sat with their victuals and their backs to the hearth and talked of the old palace days. Talin made allusions to recent chats with Uriel (it seemed he'd grown a rather crafty streak, since the betrayal). Julius spoke of home life with a love and a pride unaccented by the old dreads, and by the time he saw Talin to the door (which was, at least, before the elf got more than a _little_ shamble in his walk), there was real hope hammering at his chest.

Two weeks later, Uriel's champion was dead.

He was dead, and the forces of Dagon were already on the move. Fate was not so easily to be thwarted. Uriel would fall, and his heirs. The Dragonfires would be quenched. The hordes would come.

They would come for Martin.

The boy wasn't ready for that, he was so far from ready...

And Julius could do nothing. Uriel had said so himself. He had meant it, impossibly, as a _comfort_. But whatever the intent, the prophet had spoken, and the harbinger had come, and there was nothing, nothing –

 

 

Except to go home to an empty house, and chop wood for the dead hearth, and read a few of the books that hadn't gone the way of the north wall when the cask of oil fell in the fire.

_You'll do everything you need to_ , Cilla had said. She had said it with her dying breath, and she had known then what he and Martin needed to do. But, though she had many remarkable qualities, more than Julius ever deserved, the Dragon Blood was not among them. She had meant it as a reassurance only, and had no truth to back it with.

The truth, incontrovertible: He could do no good for Uriel, or for Tamriel.

Still, he told himself, there were other levels of good. In the spring, there would be onions. Refugees might need onions. If the daedra came later in the year, potatoes would be better. If the invasion waited till the next year, he might get some cabbages in. He'd salt and dry double in between. If the harvest in the coming year were as bad as the last, he wouldn't be able to pay a farmhand to help him with the cabbages, but he'd manage somehow. He would. He'd always managed, hadn't he?

And if all went the best it could, his wife would still be in her grave, and his king would still fall to Dagon's hand, and he would never see his son's face again.

He rose creakily from his seat. “Olav.”

“Quickly, Ormarson.”

“You wouldn't have heard any news from Valenwood?”

“No,” said the barkeep brusquely. “Why would I?”

Well. It could be worse. He could have heard that Talin's fears for the province were confirmed. But then, there was nothing to say they hadn't been. Only that news of it had not yet reached Bruma.

Julius stepped out of the pub into a snowy wind, wishing he knew for certain.

 

 

Giskel shoved his hands into his opposite sleeves and rubbed his wrists vigorously. “All right,” he said, as though blurting out a confession, “this is a day for _functional_ gloves.” (The elegant satin gloves he'd appropriated from his father's shop were sodden and long since wadded into his coinpurse.)

“Yes, you can almost notice that it's winter.” Martin, panting under the weight of the traveling case, managed to flash Giskel a cheeky smile. To say nothing of the famed Nordic “ice veins”, Giskel was no better than a Bravilian in the cold. But, in truth, this really was a decent winter's day for the Imperial City – brisk winds, numb cheeks, more snow than slush on the Talos Plaza, and the dragon statue itself peeping out from under a two-inch coat of icing. Even Steffan of the Watch (currently on duty in Elven Gardens, where Giskel lived) seemed in no mood to chat.

Fortunately, leaving tracks was not an issue for the day's activities, not in the parlor of the _Tiber Septim Hotel_. And the borrowed finery was going to be useful in there.

Giskel studied Martin's face, then shook his head in mock-pity. “See, we should've done this _before_ you went and shut yourself up in the guest room with your books. That's the first proper end-of-term look I've seen from you.”

The last week of study in the daedric tongues had actually been quite fruitful. Tiring, yes. In the ordinary course of study, and much moreso when he felt his wards begin to flag, and found himself forced to tangibly tear his eyes from a High Daedric text to reinforce them. He never found much sleep the night after those incidents. But he was finally sensing himself progressing.

Most of the mountain was still above his feet, to be sure. Scholar-Instructor Hayn, irritatingly meticulous as he was, did have a distinct point when it came to his frequent anecdotes about overconfident novices getting in over their heads. But when it came time to confront Vaermina, he would, at least, be equipped to converse – if not, yet, at all well.

Father's practical etiquette lessons, which still came unbidden to him with annoying frequency, would have held that he ought to spend less time in the guest room and more time ingratiating himself with Giskel's family while subtly making sure they didn't despise him, but in truth, no one much seemed to mind – least of all Giskel, who had long experience with Martin's study habits.

Of course, Giskel probably meant that no amount of productive study was appropriate for after term's end. And it wasn't as though he were precisely _wrong_.

“You've got the right quill?” said Giskel nervously.

“Jackdaw feather, five inches. You've got Felicia's vanishing ink?”

“No, she clean forgot about the lovely room I'm sharing with her. Yes, of course I've got the ink.” He frowned. “Better hand it to you now, come to think of it.” He slipped it into Martin's left pocket, now all but bounding up and down on his toes with a giddy nervousness.

Martin cleared his throat. “Before we go in, I'd put on an air. Think of the lout who visited your father's shop three days ago. You _look_ like you're up to no good.”

“So did he,” said Giskel, already straightening into a more dignified posture.

“All right,” laughed Martin, “but it was a sort of bad intention that's a lot more common in this establishment.”

“You _dare_ to imply that I'm common?” said Giskel with a genteel sneer.

Martin nodded, put on a stolidly obsequious expression, and took his place behind Giskel with the case.

“Welcome to the _Tiber Septim Hotel_ ,” called the clerk, sounding as filled with pomp and circumstance as he might have done with sincerity when the place had opened but a week ago. “Shall I arrange you a room, sirs?”

Giskel cast an artfully disbelieving glance Martin's way. “No. _I_ await company. For the moment, might I partake of what is offered in the salon?”

So there they sat on a chaise, sipping at Cyrodiilic brandy served by a very stiff maidservant (this much _was_ within Giskel's price range.) Giskel prepared to pass Martin a Potion of Lightfoot should an adequate mark come to the desk – seeking a full bed, not intending to unpack until the next shift, and preferably uncommonly obnoxious if such a person could be found before the morning shift was half over. Otherwise, common obnoxiousness would need to serve.

In the meantime, they amused themselves by casting knowing and superior faces at all and sundry.

When a Redguard woman burst in in a fur-lined cloak and a foul mood, Martin thought he had his chance. But behind him –

“It's not as though I've been lax on my payments till now,” said Tar-Meena of the Archives, all but chasing her at the maximum speed the dignity of them both would permit. (Martin nudged Giskel with the predetermined warning signal; Giskel turned his face away from the clerk's desk.) “I _have_ been robbed, only yesterday, and when I say you'll need to give me time--”

Abruptly, her gaze found Martin.

There was fear in that gaze. And it wasn't like Father's mindless and reflexive fear of him, or like the trepidation with which young Associates sometimes looked at him. This fear was removed but massive, as though she'd seen a brigand's encampment just over the hill from her home.

“Please at least let me state my case once you're settled in.” Her voice was considerably more strained now.

The – usurer, Martin gathered – paused a very long time before saying, “Very well – sir, I'll have a room at once.” He had finally had the sense to turn away from the scene and so didn't see her face, but he could hear the both of them ascend the stairs to what the clerk had said was room twenty-two.

“We'll need to leave,” muttered Martin apologetically.

“What – why? Who _was_ that?”

“The Argonian. She...” Martin cast his mind about for something that didn't require explanations so overdue they could never be made, something that _was_ explicable in the first place. “She recognized me from Arcane, and she knows we're not meant to be here. I think she's about to tell that Redguard the same.”

Giskel slumped his head back onto the edge of the chaise, disbelieving. “I really should have known better than to make you the inconspicuous one. All right, what do I tell Felicia?”

Martin thought for a moment, then grinned. “Tell her who's not sleeping at home in Talos Plaza tonight.”

Giskel matched the grin and leapt up, all thought of noble mannerisms immediately forgotten. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Martin held up a hasty finger and, before their exit, walked swiftly to the desk. “You may want someone to keep a discreet eye on room twenty-two,” he said. He couldn't fathom Tar-Meena's new attitude, but he did have a fairly clear idea of what usurers might do with delinquent clients.

 

 

Giskel pointed. “That one.”

“Why do you say that?” said Martin, waving a hand at the barely-snowed-over footprints by the door.

“Three smokestacks, no smoke. Looks like they left less than an hour ago, so the fires should still be puffing. But no, even the servants aren't bothering to keep the place warm – and do those tracks look like high-heeled boots to you?”

Martin whistled, duly impressed. “I _will_ note that applying this level of thought to your studies won't actually hinder you from doing unspeakable things to your trousers with an Arcane tenure.”

“No sense wasting the time _before_ the tenure, is there?”

“Better than my mother. She had a knack like yours and squandered it entirely on getting me to help with the chores.”

Giskel gave him his how-in-Oblivion-does-that-follow look.

“Bruma. It's a poor mother in those hills who doesn't have _some_ woodcraft.”

“...If you say so. So, how do you think we're getting in?”

Martin gave the premises a quick once-over and then shrugged. “Backward, and watch your step.”

This was more easily managed by Giskel than by Martin (who was still burdened by Giskel's case), but Martin's shoes had flat wooden soles about the size of those belonging to the fellow who'd gone out, which made up for his fractional errors. Giskel had the honor of undoing the lock while Martin did look-out duty.

Martin thought the inside more handsome than that of the _Tiber Septim_ , which, while equally fine, seemed entirely too vast. He knew that it _was_ made into a ballroom for the Emperor's birthday, but the majestic furniture was a poor disguise, spaced as sparsely as it was. He gave a valet's wave to the staircase. “There's your suite, honored magister. Go get Felicia while I keep a look-out here. I'll put a cork on that windowsill if there's any trouble.”

“I'd try _running_ , if I were you.”

“Immediately after. Side entrance.”

As soon as Giskel was gone and the door was magically resealed, Martin made a mad dash for the larder. He hadn't eaten all morning, and an early break in lookout duty was probably better than a late one.

The larder turned out to be difficult to find, but rather well-stocked. Ham hocks, white loaves, dried mustard greens and garlic...

He frowned.

One of the garlic braids, strung over the next arch, was swaying. And there were bread crumbs by the table.

He downed the Potion of Lightfoot and inched toward the doorway.

No more obvious trails, now. But nothing opened onto this chamber but a good many empty closets, and not all of them were closed. If he were a kitchen thief hiding from pursuit, he would certainly close the door.

He crept in front of each of the closed doors and magically locked them.

“No harm meant,” he called. “We're trespassers also. But it's probably best that we not cross paths for the night.”

He heard a frantic rattling at the second door he'd locked. “For the _night?_ ” It was a young woman's voice. “There... there aren't any blankets in here! I might freeze before dusk!”

This operation was simply determined to unravel, wasn't it? “Then... then I'll get a fire going in the kitchen. And I'll slip you something under the door.” He sorely wished he hadn't left all past door-cracking responsibility to Praneh and Giskel.

“You're an uncommon kind of trespasser, then. Thank you.”

It was the work of a minute to light the ovens, and not much longer than that to find a good wool blanket to fit under the door. But she seemed uncertain that this was enough to keep her, so Martin had little choice but to stay and see to her welfare. Soon she was talking in great floods, setting to conversation as a man set to his first meal in a month.

 

 

Her name was Aldrea Waters. She came of a little farming hamlet called Aleswell. She had little in the way of fond memories; her father had been little more than a beggar, her mother had worked her ruthlessly, and the neighbors had been as much help to her as spectators at the Arena – one Argonian had actually stuck his head through the window in order to glean the latest.

When she at last grew sick of it and fled to the Imperial City to make her fortune, she'd met with little better treatment. Her first employer had wanted a burglar, her second had been a legitimate potioneer, but a tyrant who cast her back out on the street before the first week was out, and her third soon tried to make a whore of her. At that, she had decided that it was better to honestly burgle for herself than to do anything else. In fact, she was freer now than she ever had been.

(Father had said: _If a woman – or a man, for that matter – has been ill-used by everyone in their life but still trusts you on sight, your best policy is to run fast as you can in the opposite direction._ That was a piece of advice that had rung sharply false even then. What about common courtesy? Was such a person to be _punished_ for placing their trust in someone who might help?)

( _It shows they're very slow in learning from their mistakes, Martin. You can't_ be  _courteous in the eyes of someone like that, not for long._ But none of that was any sort of excuse to let an essentially innocent woman die of exposure.)

She finally asked what Martin was doing here. After she had been so detailed and frank with him, he couldn't very well refuse a question about something so trivial. He told her of Giskel and Felicia. He told her about Arcane.

When she told of her nightmares, he responded in kind.

Before the sound of Felicia calling for him rang distantly from the entrance hall, he had told her everything.

 

 

And, through the whole talk, he had no idea that Aldrea was beautiful.

Her hair, now it was properly washed in Praneh's basin, shone like polished chestnut. Her olive face bore the sun-browning of farm life as well as he'd ever seen; her whole form was slim and delicate as an Ayleid arch. The ordinary, clean smock he'd bought her became her better than many a fine-dressed resident of Talos Plaza could hope for. The touch of her lips to the line of his jaw was the very touch of Dibella, he saw that her feelings for him were little short of worship, and if he had one lament, it was that Giskel and Praneh's houses, all the rest of midwinter, were kept too full for him to taste her further than that.

No. Martin had to concede, that wasn't really true. Aldrea inflamed him, had taken half his waking thought, had inspired daydreams to outweigh the red desert itself, but what he most wished to pursue with her was not _her_ , but the Prince of Nightmares. Only she knew. It was far too late to tell Giskel or Praneh; he kept Trenna and Sishara and the rest at a careful distance (which, fortunately, Aldrea was quite willing to accept as the truth); but Aldrea was his one true confidant.

But the two desires had one answer. By the second week after they'd met, unable to take it any more, he persuaded Giskel to provide them the septims for a night at the _King and Queen_.

 

 

“I can read,” said Aldrea, slumped on the velvet armchair. “But not well. Never had much of a chance, you know, in Aleswell.”

Martin, cross-legged on the floor beside her, kissed her fingers; this obstacle mattered absurdly little to him at the moment. “I can always teach you.”

“Mm. No need. I think I can do something for you already. I heard talk, when I was still stealing food – I think this was Temple District – something about daedra worshippers in the hills of Chorrol.”

Martin went still. “No,” he said flatly.

“Yes,” said Aldrea, with an intensity that brooked no argument. “While you work with the... with the... with the scholar matters, I'll see if I can't see about whatever the cultists know and the scholars don't. Don't worry, I'll only watch them. It's probably not even Vaermina; these priests can barely tell one daedra from the next. And... and don't you believe in fate?”

“I haven't the faintest idea if I believe in fate,” said Martin. “But I wish you would be near me.”

(Did he, though, really? He would return to Arcane in a week, and if every one of his sweethearts gave up all hope of being his, he'd lose... he'd lose... he couldn't think of a way to put it that credited him. But it would be a loss, and the possibility gnawed at him.)

“Well, I _do_ believe. Martin, you're the only good thing that's ever happened to me. That's the voice of fate, and if my fate is to be yours, I _will_ be safe. I promise. Don't you trust my promises?”

Something about the plaintiveness of that last question made his stomach clench a it, but that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of the conversation. “I do. Yes. Of course I trust you. But, Aldrea, don't trust wholly to fate. If you must do this, do it with the utmost caution.”

“I will,” said Aldrea. “I mean that. And I'll write. And – and could you make me a promise in return?”

“Yes,” said Martin, before thinking to ask the nature of the promise.

“Say you'll come for me. If the letters ever stop.”

“I will,” he said, relieved and without reserve. “I swear.”

Aldrea leaned over and threw her arms around his neck. “Then seal it,” she purred.

Her spates of vulnerability still discomfited him over the following week, but to his relief, she seemed no less capable of looking him in the eye than before.

 

 

“What can _they_ be so excited about?” said Trenna, jerking her thumb toward a knot of scholars debating, with a vigor that their hushed tones only accented, by the tower's back entrance.

“At a wild guess?” said Praneh, crossing her legs on the alchemy garden wall. (She had refrained from telling any of Martin's girlfriends at Arcane that he was spoken for, but Martin had the sense that the decision was made against her better judgment.) “They're talking politics. There's this rumor the Crown Prince might not really be the heir to the Ruby Throne. Or else someone's forged documents in order to make that claim. And no, no one seems sure if it's Enman or Ebel or anyone else. It's all rather muddied and I don't know why anyone would expect it to become an issue any time soon, but all the more fodder for speculation, I suppose.”

“Excellent,” said Giskel. “If it's not about dead bodies or academic reforms, then any argument between them is good news for us.”

“I have better news than that,” said an young boy with long and oily hair, a boy Martin could swear he'd never seen before. “The flax is coming up. And not a moment too soon, either!”

Martin cast the interloper a cold stare until a flush crept up his neck and he hurriedly excused himself.

“Flax,” said Trenna in disgusted tones. “Might as well ask if he's being marked by rank while he's busy advertising his magical ineptitude.”

But the crinkling at her nose didn't seem to come from real disdain, and her eyes were entirely fixed on Martin as though gauging his approval.

Sishara, who had carefully sat herself at a point exactly as close to Martin as Trenna had chosen, added, “A good deal to learn about belonging, that one has.”

The thought of his influence made Martin smile, which was fortunate, as he couldn't find an explanation for _why_ the maladroit boy had irked him so, or at any rate an explanation that didn't make him sound like a high-class twit.

“Well, I had better get going,” he said, hoisting himself up from the wall and shaking out the numbness in his rear.

“It goes to the library?” Sishara surmised, eyebrow cocked in amusement.

Martin raised his palms in a gesture of mock surrender.

He'd tried a time or two since the beginning of term, but only in a fruitless quest to ascertain what, exactly, Tar-Meena had been afraid of. She would not speak to him, so he guessed she must be still afraid, but he'd thought it the best gesture to leave the Archives to her.

In point of fact, he had spent most of his studies in the crannies of Master Hidja's rowhouse for months now; the Redguard was ever more remote and silent each time he came by, but as Martin's knowledge gerw, the more he was content to wait on a short answer anyway.

And, in point of fact, he wasn't going to study at all.

Aldrea had kept her oath to write – she had, to appearances, written every day – but Martin's ardor at that had long since waned. The thought of Aldrea still evoked a powerful sweetness, but somehow it had grown sharp, too, a thing to twist at his guts.

After five minutes doing nothing in the Mystic Archives, he made a casual walk to his sleeping quarters. He would need to answer her to her satisfaction.

He arrived to find Giskel sitting on his bunk, with a letter in his hand and another slit open by his side.

“Back from the library so soon,” he said, not even looking up from the letter. “Now there's the surprise of surprises. How _you_ ever fell for a girl with spelling like this...”

“Why are you reading my letters?” said Martin flatly.

Giskel's eyes flashed, not even a hint of humor in them. “Why are you dodging around like a damned skooma-eater to read them yourself?”

“Answer the question.”

“What is it you think I just did?” Giskel all but slammed Aldrea's letter onto the bed. “I _knew_ it had to do with her. I bloody well knew it, but I never--”

“That letter there isn't even hers!” snapped Martin, as much to change the subject as in outrage at the violation.

“Oh,” said Giskel, with a sheepish look. “Well, see, I thought it was. Fussy handwriting above the seal, which meant _Martin Ormarson's dream girl_ to me. But no, that's Master Hayn; he wishes you'd stop frittering away your potential putting fire runes in the latrine and start frittering it away in one of his adept-level courses.”

“He knows--”

“No, he doesn't know about the fire runes; I'm paraphrasing. But I'll note his letter doesn't say anything about _if you're not lying_ and _if you really love me_ and _what is it going to take_. Even putting spelling and penmanship aside, Hayn's a better woman for you any day.”

“Would you stop harping on Aldrea's writing – she was raised by destitute farmers--”

“Weren't _you?_ ” There was a bitter triumph in Giskel's face, plainly visible, yet Martin's weird empathy insisted on corroborating the sentiment. “Then what's this about _beating Vaermina_ in the letter? That can't have anything to do with the dozen or so times you've woken up gasping in horror three feet away from me, can it?”

Martin felt himself go completely still.

“And all that time you're putting into esoteric Conjuration... I mean, did you think I wouldn't have given you a hand there, or are you so mulish... oh, well, of course you're so mulish. But of all the people to _stop_ being mulish with, why _her?_ ”

“I'm sorry, Giskel,” said Martin weakly. “It was too soon to confide in you – until one day, it was too late. It's true – my father _is_ a farmer. But he was a battlemage before I was born – under Tharn. That's when the curse was laid.” He scrubbed a hand between his eyes. “Forgive me my silence. It should never have gone on so long as it did.”

Giskel cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, then. I suppose I could start by not reading the rest of your week's post. Here.”

Seven other letters, and six of them were Aldrea's. Martin grunted in tacit acknowledgment that he'd rather not read those at the moment, and pulled the plain red seal off the seventh.

Before it fell from his numb hand.

 

 

_Martin,_

_Julius has been found dead outside Bruma. I bid you return home at once._

_Divines be with you, as they are with him.  
Jauffre_

 


	8. Reflections on the Road

The Divines apportioned mortals' sorrows in measure to the trials of the times. Jauffre, who had seen his share of trials, had had much occasion to call that a blessing.

Now, though, the twist in the principle. Tamriel was in as easy a peace as the seasoned Blade had ever witnessed. There was no other grief to bear, no life-or-death duty to carry out. And so the loss of Julius Ormarson filled his whole chest, cold and sharp and unavoidable.

Curse these Bruman winters! Snow upon snow covering tracks as soon as they appeared, unceasing cold to hide the dead until spring, both keeping the witnesses fast to their houses – burying forever all trace of what had happened on that road.

For the death of a man so close in the Emperor's confidence could not be assumed to be chance. It did, often, happen to _be_ chance. The news of the Eternal Champion's death had, at first, raised every alarm in Jauffre's mind, but the investigation had shown his suspicions ill-founded. But with the very possibility of an inquiry erased...

Ormarson had not been so great a figure, of course, not in his prime and certainly not now – not as of his death last winter, Jauffre corrected himself sharply.

No – Julius Ormarson, Mirror Prime, did not loom large in the common annals. Though he had kept alert for discrepancies in the neighbors' demeanor, he did not have the impression that one of them marked he was missing until the day he came to call. He'd spent all winter frozen at the bottom of the ravine, neck snapped viciously to the side, and no one even thought to inquire.

It was tremendously _unjust_ , cried the most childish part of him. Justice would have Ormarson in honored place in the Undercroft, it insisted – knowing all the while that justice in truth forbade it; Jauffre himself would certainly never have a pretty tomb reading GRANDMASTER OF THE BLADES, and that thought had never particularly ruffled him.

But that a man so clever and loyal and good could die without anyone's notice, that he would end his life in a _pit_ , that word he'd spat out bitterly for twenty years, the nightmare Jauffre always prayed he would one day escape...

Such sentiments would not be stilled. But they must be ignored all the same. If Ormarson had not simply fallen – and he might well have fallen, old beyond his years and beyond Uriel's, deep in his cups, but then a murderer could have taken him under no other circumstance – if there were foul play, it wouldn't likely be a matter of books or turnips. It would be an enemy of the Empire, and a very dangerous one by the level of knowledge he possessed.

No. If he stood at the head of any such trail, every marker was long strewn past placing, and to chase his own thoughts in circles profited him nothing. If there were danger, there _would_ be other signs. If his Blades were at work, they would find them.

But there remained Martin to consider.

The reports from his agents at Arcane were more and more dispiriting at every issue. They both remarked on his raw talent, but their reports on his doings told that he was sorely squandering them. He was said to have dedicated himself to special study with a Conjuration master, but his Conjuration coursework was reportedly little better for it. And as for the remarks on his possible enemies – spurned girls. Social misfits. Probable victims of practical jokes. Not a set of foes to commend the foe-maker.

There was little enough he could do for Ormarson now. But for one token: Martin Ormarson could not be allowed to forget the man who had raised him.

 

 

Martin stared dully at his interlocked hands on the rough-hewn inn table. “You shouldn't have come, Giskel.”

“If you'd seen yourself on the road, you wouldn't say that.” Giskel's voice was subdued a measure, but Martin knew that was conscious tact and nothing more. “For all that lightning and swordwork you bring down on imps in practice hall – wait, is that for Vaermina's cultists or something? sorry, _I'm_ _sorry_ , still new to all this – point is, you're so out of it, bandits could've ambushed you by standing two paces in front of your nose.”

He felt an alien ripple of amusement somewhere under the numbness. “And so you had us melt in with a _trade_ _caravan._ ”

“Caravans have guards. It was sound enough logic. I mean - yes, those oh-so-shadowy figures on Talos Bridge _were_ Arcane students in the end, but now I know how _long_ it takes to walk to Bruma, huzzah for unreasonable bursts of panic.”

Martin shook his head, feeling wearier than he could remember. “You shouldn't have come. You never knew him.”

Giskel gave Martin's shoulder a bracing squeeze. “Bit late to say that _now_.”

Silence fell between them. Martin looked on the tallow candle hanging in the corner of the barroom, watched the flame descend by slow inches, his thoughts inchoate. He did not know how much time had passed, but he became gradually aware that Giskel wasn't about to break the silence. Finally, he swallowed and said:

“We had better get to the Chapel and find Jauffre.”

It seemed to take more force of will than his daedric studies had ever demanded to move himself from his seat. His feet were lead. He let reflex take over his step – Bruma did not appear much changed, certainly not enough to trip him up. His pace loosened. The cold thoughts trickled back in.

A few short hours ago, he'd walked the road where his father fell. It was a path that had its dangers, but everyone in the county knew them, and walked it once a month at least. And he could not recall a time

(only when the fear arose, when his eyes fell on Martin and lost their reason)

when his father had lost his footing.

Unreason, to take his legs out from under him. Despair, to drive him to the edge – a prospect so awful that the mere image of it blotted out any other. Either way, Vaermina had overcome him.

Either way, Martin had been the instrument.

He barely noticed when they reached Brother Jauffre; he realized belatedly that Giskel had made the introductions for the both of them as they were already walking out to the churchyard.

Only the three of them, even now. And Giskel was there only for Martin's sake, so really the mourners numbered only two.

Spring's early growth was already beginning to erase the new earth over the grave. The marker said only JULIUS ORMARSON, beneath the Arkaean rays. Mother's plot lay a few rows away; only the name showed any connection between the two.

As Jauffre began to speak, his eyes were fixed on that patch of ground.

“In the sight of the chapel of Talos, on the ground of Arkay, we gather to record the memory of Julius Ormarson. A man of many roles – battlemage, farmer, husband and father. A man of but one character – a man with a keen eye and a just heart, with industrious hands, with love and loyalty down to his bones. Akatosh gladly takes him under his wing.

“Few we are today, but if everyone well-served by him were here today, I do not think the city would hold them. Let Mara grant us comfort, and let Julianos preserve our memories, and let it be that we meet him again.”

It took a few moments for it to dawn on Martin that this was all. Even now, when his old friend was past all danger of broken confidence, Jauffre would speak no more of what he knew perfectly well - and Martin knew too, though not by his doing.

He mustered the energy to speak. “I might have known.” A bitterness constricted his chest; he barely spoke above a murmur. “You wouldn't say a word to save him, why would I imagine you'd say a word in his memory?”

Martin turned and ran he knew not where, pain stabbing him in his chest, more than once coming close to a fall on the muddy spring ground.

He knew, by the sound behind him, that Jauffre followed. Out of that pale thing he thought of as concern, no doubt. But when Martin was hunted to a standstill, the priest at least had the good grace neither to say anything else nor to lay his sanctimonious hands on him.

 

 

After another day on the road back, he had collected himself a bit more. At any rate, he thought of practical things again. For Father was dead, but the curse lived. And one day it would claim Martin.

Who would Vaermina use to destroy him, he wondered. Would he one day recoil in horror at the sight of Giskel in the next bunk? Would he ever lose his reason, and wake to find him writhing in the throes of his lightning spell?

No, he realized: it was already happening. Aldrea. Aldrea was the chosen weapon – the very thought of her letters gave him a sickly dread. There was nothing about them to account for this. She loved him, she longed for him, she had had a hard life – only this. And he had begun to fear her.

How much time had he squandered, in roistering and in studying irrelevancies? How much time had he left, before he fell to madness and death?

No more. It was time to subdue the nightmare – by any means.

 

 

Aldrea took another glance over her shoulder before rolling up the second blanket. The other acolytes would pay no mind to evidence of her packing, she was sure; this be-canvased cluster of pillars was piled so pell-mell with possessions that there was hardly room in anyone's head to remember anything that belonged to anyone else and wasn't intoxicating. Even the Glade outside was scattered with old bottles and the bones of last year's stolen roasts. Sanguine's revelers were not fussy about housekeeping.

The trouble was they always did pay attention to _her_ , and--

“You _can't_ be leaving us before the Hunt?” Tones of superior mock-surprise. Must be Decian. Just her luck that the high priest be the one to catch her. “I mean, Chorrol is one thing, but two bedrolls...”

“No, after,” she said, though she hadn't actually made up her mind. The Wild Hunts, they said, were the great feasts of Sanguine's power. Thus far, she'd had only morsels of it, and found even these to be ecstasies. But if Martin had stopped writing...

“Hmm, but I think you'll want to stick around a bit after your first,” Decian commented, eyes visibly glazing a bit more at the thought. “Happens to most of us, you know.”

“You only wish,” She poised her tone on the very edge between teasing and disgust. “No, I'm off to the Imperial City straight after; it's important.”

“Important!” Decian waved a hand. “What in this _world_ is important?”

“Male company,” she said slyly, knowing that this would tweak him and the doctrinaire twit would be totally cognizant that Sanguine didn't mean him to bother himself over such matters.

To her disappointment he concealed his frustration well, in a cloak of magnanimity. “Well, then write him! Let him come to us!”

“Ah, but he's stopped writing, and we've agreed that I then have seek him out. In person.” Actually, Aldrea could only remember the pact running the other way, but she could easily pretend to misremember. “I think - I'm afraid he's forgotten me. But if I go to him, if he sees the love in my eyes...”

Decian laughed, startled. “I don't think I've seen love in _your_ eyes, Aldrea, till your legs are spread on the altar. I wouldn't bother so much about _eyes_. Romantic nonsense. Bordering on Dibellan, frankly.”

Aldrea gave him a real scowl. Often, she reflected, it was easier when you never cared for someone in the first place. No tension, no expectation of betrayal, no devastation when it came. “It's not 'romantic nonsense', it's only the truth, he really _can_ tell your heart that way. It's a gift of his. On my honor – or lack thereof.”

“I suppose you'll be returning from this jaunt for... male company?”

“Of course I will.” This was only the truth. Sanguine's revels reached such peaks of pleasure that, once tasted, she couldn't see herself going without. “And I intend to bring him with me.” She forestalled his ensuing question with a glare: “And yes, he'd come. I've counted back, and I've not had one nightmare since I came. He'll do anything at all, once he remembers me, once I give him a way out.”

“A way out of... what, nightmares? What'll you tell him the first time he gets an off pouch of moon sugar?”

Aldrea grinned. “It wouldn't matter. It's real _dreams_ that haunt him. Places he's been, but it's a red desert with a sky of coals, full of dead bodies and things. A curse laid by Vaermina herself, driving him mad. No, he'd come.”

“Hm.” Decian was no longer interrogating, but contemplating the possibilities. “What's your far-off lover look like, then?”

“Bit pudgy. Doesn't matter. He's got eyes the color of Lake Rumare on a clear day, and his _voice_...” She paused thoughtfully. “He's pretty strong, too.”

Let Decian think what he liked. Martin was hers, _her_ pleasure; Sanguine had a tolerance for idiosyncrasies in pleasure-taking. And once he was with her in the Glade, there would be no fear of his disappearing again. The bonds of Sanguine were sweet delight, and no iron shackle could compare.

Yes. She would go after the Hunt.

* * *

 

That night, when she was alone among the pillars, Sanguine called to her.

_**Well, haven't you got pluck.** _

“Is that good pluck or bad pluck?” she asked, nervously walking out to the idol in the Glade.

_**New blood is just what this little gathering needs, I think. Decian, to be frank, is growing** _ **thunderously** **_dull... but have you considered that your tasty morsel might not wish to come?_ **

Yes. Yes, she'd considered it. She considered with every letter she penned that he might abandon her, as everyone else had. She said nothing. Serious passions had no place before Sanguine.

_**I think it best that we add a little something to make sure he does, don't you?** _

A charm, something like a web of fingers interlaced, appeared in her right palm.

“You- this is--”

_**I never** _ **was** **_one of the stingy Princes, you know. If your man won't come, put this his way. He'll hang it over his bed, and at night he'll taste my gifts. Just enough that he'll yearn for the source._ **

A brooch like a brass four-pointed star, which would be gaudy if it had any imperfection of line, appeared in her left.

_**And give him this, too. When the time comes – a peak in the patterns of the stars, and yes, I think we're getting desperate enough for that sort of nudge – it'll give off an unmistakable shine. Then, I'm open for his pilgrimage. And you can do with him whatever you like.** _

“So how long would that be, then? Until this star thing happens.”

_**Mmm, I do like a bit of surprise in your life, you know. But until then, best leave him in Arcane.You'd be astounded how effeciently that place can send people my way.** _

Aldrea had heard, almost from birth, of the folly of claiming to outmatch the gods. It was a favorite provincial topic for people with nothing better to speak of. But the fools compared themselves to the gods in their strengths. If _Sanguine_ thought Martin was worth a bit of patience, then Aldrea could certainly wait.

 


	9. To Subdue the Nightmare

The third morning on the road back, Giskel finally ventured his idea. Even on the way up the slope, he'd been half bursting with it at times; if Brother Jauffre's letter had never come, it was certain Martin would have heard this long before.

“This might seem overly simple,” he blurted through the tent-flap in lieu of the morning's greeting, “but – how much can a dream trouble you if you don't, well, sleep?”

Martin slumped back on his bedroll and closed his eyes. “Don't think he didn't try.”

“That's – I wasn't thinking that. I was only thinking maybe he never used a potion for it.”

“No. He never did. I can't imagine there _is_ such a potion.”

“Martin!” Opening his eyes a crack, he saw that Giskel was in full manic flow. “I use that potion all the time. Just about every time we're out to the dark watch and I've got guard duty. Felicia's specialty. The formula's only five years old or so; no reason they'd have heard of it in Bruma. Frees up the night, and you don't feel it in the morning, either.”

Martin found it difficult to believe that such a thing could exist without Father's knowledge. Men with steady livelihoods tended to be set in their ways; Father had been no exception; but to think he would have ceased to look...

No sense in leaving any path unexplored. “Have you got the formula?”

“ _Felicia's_ specialty,” repeated Giskel. “Don't worry, she'll be happy enough to help." 

 

 

The first night of the potion was a wasted one. Martin had not the heart to go back to poring over daedric texts as though nothing had changed. Praneh had devised some plot against Else, a strident and thoroughly obnoxious young girl with whom she had frequently butted heads, but no one had banked on Martin and Giskel returning in time to help with the execution.

So he simply made his way to the library, keeping as wide a berth as possible between himself and Tar-Meena (who spent those minutes alternating between staring hard at him and staring with the utmost vagueness at her organization work) as he picked a few novellas which he had read so often that it was more like putting on an old familiar blanket than reading. He then swiftly returned to the bunks and found the corner where his candle might make the least disturbance.

But in a few hours he stepped out into the new sunshine, greeting Steffan with a measure of real good cheer, for he found himself no more tired than he had been at dusk when he first took the potion. The experiment had worked as advertised.

Now to face the week and a half of missed coursework.

His study partner in Alteration turned out to have found new interests in men during his time away. Martin, his thoughts muffled by the sudden descent of a gauze of melancholy, only nodded in vague understanding; she whirled away, red-faced and deeply stung. He regretted the loss later in the day, when his feelings were sharp. He had cared nothing for her, but her departure was like a spray of rock falling away from a mountain – an erosion, and the mountain was that much less for it. It left a bitter taste in his throat.

It was surprisingly difficult to put up an antiphysical barrier without her instruction, but he did at last manage it.

Trenna and Sishara, however, kept him up to speed on his main weak points – though not before frantically clawing to outdo one another in condolences for his father's death. His insight had not, evidently, been conquered with his sleep, and he found they did this not for his father's sake, nor even for Martin's. It was only the newest field of their battle against one another, with Martin as the prize. He longed for Aldrea.

In the evening he returned to Master Hidja's quarters, and actually found, in the loose papers, a passage concerning Vaermina. But it was not of much use. It claimed her nightmares to be wholly deceitful, and so had no idea whereof it spoke. If the dreams were not leavened with truth, what would an Ormarson have to fear from them? If the insights did not speak truth, why was he worried that they would turn on him?

But he then returned to the study of daedric language. Owing to Felicia's potion, he did not tire. But his mind strayed again and again up the path to Bruma, and he encountered the same problems that High Daedric had always presented him at the small hours of the morning.

By dawn, Martin felt removed from the mortal flow of time. Everyone about him tired, and fell into darkness for hours, and rose in freshness. But for Martin, it was always the end of the day – the time to take to study or to leisure, when dark reminisces did not intrude – and if he lacked the energy of the morning when sleep was shaken from the eyes, that was the lot the Ormarson line had drawn whatever he did.

That morning, class was suspended. It was the day of the generalist's gauntlet – somehow, even before Jauffre's letter came, the gauntlet had not entered Martin's mind.

(Because he had then begun to fear Aldrea, he remembered with a pang. The six letters he had left behind him had been swept away by the servants in his absence, and no more had come. If only she wrote again, he might test whether Vaermina's hold on him had receded. Why should she not write?)

No spell was required to be demonstrated at the gauntlet, but there would be a question of application or history for every instructor in Arcane. There were no repeated questions. Praneh had catalogued which of the instructors were liable to have run out of pertinent questions by the end and started becoming obscure, and which were likely to start with queries that required a full oration before dwindling to questions that might be answered in half a sentence, and calculated that their best bet was to stand two-thirds of the way down the queue. Martin was not overly concerned as to his chances of success, and so charitably stood behind the rest of the garden wall crowd, and did not even tense when his place grew nigh – though this may have been simply because his limbs seemed in no mood to move, never mind tense up.

Overall, it went well. His dependence on his girls showed through in places – he found himself fumbling when trying to explain the alchemical value of the calcinator in potions of alteration – but this was made up for by his general knowledge of history, a study that had begun soon as he could read and further back than he could remember.

Master Hayn, bucking Praneh's predictions so late in the day, asked for an account of the Battlemages from the first schism with the Mages' Guild to the present; Martin somehow managed to get through the Simulacrum with a steady voice and without making inquiries about Vaermina. (The rule of the gauntlet forbade instructors to answer questions regardless.) Master Traven, hewing directly to Praneh's predictions, asked about necromancy: the present Arcane school thereof, in this case, which he liked no more than he liked Mannimarco. (Master Falcar, in an apparent attempt at retaliation, made a similarly withering query about the school of Destruction.) And Master Hidja, with a solemn wink, posed his question on Meridia's demesne in Low Daedric, and Martin thought his grammar good when he answered in kind.

After an interminable wait on the plaza which he could not even punctuate with a well-placed rune, he was given his mark: eighty-eight in a hundred. He sighed in relief. That was what he usually managed, and he knew he would not have fared so well were he still subject to sleep.

 

 

Giskel had disappeared somewhere with Felicia, but the rest were gathered on the wall, and the general spirit was high.

“So glad to be at the end of all that extra study,” said Trenna, stifling a happy yawn. 

Martin had a flash of self-satisfaction at that: he had not studied at all, and faced highly extenuating circumstance, yet he had wound up with eighty-eight to Trenna's ninety-one. But he only smiled and said, “You cannot imagine how beguiling you are when you're beginning to fall asleep.”

Sishara swatted at his sleeve in a manner that was meant to come off as playful; Martin took her hand and kissed it. Peaceful silence descended; a spot-faced alchemist took a hesitant, circuitous path onto the earth of the garden in order to get at the primroses behind them; the smell of fresh bread issued from the staff quarters, ready for the picking.

“ _Oh_ ,” said Praneh suddenly, pointing out at a snub-nosed girl who was scratching furiously at her sides.

Trenna and Sishara broke into badly suppressed laughter.

“It _does_ change its robes on occasion. Sishara was not sure whether to make that wager.”

“Fine-splintered thistle thorn,” said Praneh smugly, for Martin's benefit. “Primitive, but alchemical science hasn't surpassed it yet. Kynareth has, on occasion, but it would be a bit _much_ to introduce , oh, bedbugs or chiggers to the apprentice sleeping quarters...”

The girl – Else, Martin presumed – had caught sight of them, and by the fury in her scream, she'd heard something of their talk, too. She was running headlong at the garden wall--

\--was that a conjured  _ sword _ in her hand?

Martin attempted the antiphysical barrier, without success, even as it became clear that he was directly in the warpath; Sishara screamed and leapt in front of him, only to crumple and clutch her face as the sword made a premature swing; Else abruptly fell to earth, under the armored weight of an Imperial watchman who presently turned out to be Steffan, while a number of scholars came running.

As Steffan discussed the situation in low voices with the scholars, punctuated by loud, abortive interjections by Else, Martin knelt down by Sishara, coaxing her to remove her hands from her face. He winced at what lay beneath. While restoration wasn't a subject he had overstudied this past year...

“ _No!_ No half-measures healing this, she'll lose that eye. Let me.”

Martin looked up in disbelief: it was Trenna who had said that. But she was quite right about his hasty intent, and he moved aside.

Trenna cupped her hands over the wound, a dazzling blue light showing between her fingers. As she gently withdrew, Martin saw in horror that Sishara was now sobbing blood – no, her fur was caked in blood, but the sobs were of relief, and she cast her arms around Trenna's neck.

“ _Not_ , overall, the best decision I've ever made,” said Praneh, numbly, to no one in particular.

“Ormarson,” said Steffan, bending to his level; behind him, two of his colleagues walked Else to the main tower. “A word.”

 

 

“Why do you think she attacked you?”

Martin shook his head. He had been much too preoccupied with her sword to notice her eyes. “I couldn't say it was  _ me _ . I'm the only one who never actually wronged her, and it's Sishara she hit. She looked... too angry to see straight.”

Also, there was the possibility that Else knew his reputation as the orchestrator of such pranks, but it struck him as imprudent to mention that while seated in a Watch barracks.

Steffan nodded thoughtfully. “She has fallen to indiscriminate blows before. Never  _ armed _ before now...” He sighed. “I suggest you be on your guard, Ormarson. Academically, she is a promising student, which means Arcane will do anything they can to hang onto her – I'll hazard six months' enforced solitary study before she's back on the circling green. And she's been known to strike with much more precision.”

Martin quirked his lips. “The itching powder wasn't a  _ thoroughly _ bad idea, then.”

Steffan closed his eyes as though fighting very hard not to make some personal remark.

“It was,” he finally said. “Fortunately, Miss Praneh, as the responsible party, would appear to know that already.”

 

 

Giskel did not appear in the sleeping quarters that night, but the following evening, he'd returned, and Martin wasted no time in telling him what had occurred by the garden wall.

“\--I fear I must confess,” he was saying, five minutes later, “I _never_ imagined such a thing from Trenna. Not where Sishara was concerned. I've always liked her, but I wonder if I've been entirely fair...”

“Fantastic.” Giskel smiled wanly as though attempting to appear congratulatory, and his hands were folded and fidgeting on his lap. His interest in the attack had vanished the instant he'd heard that everyone had made it out all right.

Martin sat down next to him on the bunk; his legs buckled weirdly as though the ground weren't quite steady. “All right, then. What's happened?”

Giskel threw back his head in a thoroughly humorless scoff of laughter. “You know that generalist's gauntlet yesterday?”

Martin motioned him to continue.

“Well. I was a bit under four for five. Tripped up on Hestra – never knew there _was_ a serious mage for an empress to begin with; sort of assumed an empress who had time for that _would_ be on good terms with the elves... and then there was the question about the Warmth spell's campaign applications, and the developer of the disease potion...”

The gloom about him was so deep and genuine, Martin had to suspect some sort of illusion magic.

“Right,” said Giskel with a feeble grin, “I know what you're thinking. Fairly bad day, if I were  _ Praneh _ . I've had plenty worse. But – but that's just the thing, isn't it? I've had plenty, and they've been adding up. This gauntlet? It's sealed me up for good.” He was looking toward the floor now, all pretense of blitheness gone. “Martin, come the end of Rain's Hand they're going to toss me out of Arcane, and I'll have to look my parents in the eye and tell them so, and I'll have to take on their trade, bobbing up and down for every high-and-mighty Imperial ninny who ever split a seam...”

“And you account this to a marginally bad gauntlet.” Martin hated that Giskel was trying so valiantly to spare his feelings; they were tender enough, but that was itself the sticking point. “Not the week and a half on the roads without leave.”

“Nah, it wasn't that.” A specially gullible new Associate would hear the lie in his voice. “I knew if I redoubled my efforts till the end of term, I could survive _ . _ Shame I missed that twice the effort isn't a thing I'm constitutionally capable of...” He cocked his head. “What's with you?”

Martin had a taste of sour milk in his mouth and felt on the verge of vomiting. “Bit... bit sick, I think. Doesn't matter. I'm so sorry, Giskel; I had no idea--”

He fought valiantly for a reassuring smile.

“Not the end of the world. If I know you, the high-and-mighty ninnies won't know what hit them.”

Martin could not be certain whether Giskel believed him or not. What he said was true, but it was leagues short of sufficient.

 

 

By the next dawn, his mind was addled. Irrelevant bits of nonsense floated in and out of it; he forgot with every second gust of wind what he was meant to be doing. The morning's bread tasted of spoilt meat. An alembic, shattered in the practice chambers by a novice's clumsy elbow, startled him to leaping and kept returning in his thoughts to jangle his nerves. Thoughts of his father kept emerging and vanishing incomplete, like the first half of a shy and uncertain sentence.

He brushed the back of his hand over his forehead periodically, whenever no one seemed to be looking and he had not checked in a while. He never found sign of a fever. He wished he did. In all his studies of High Daedric, he had never encountered anything like this.

At the earliest opportunity, he went to the veranda outside the alchemy room, where enterprising potioneers often plied their wares. It turned out that one was Felicia, and he cheerily purchased from her a curative potion at half the going rate.

By the last swallow, nothing had improved.

“I don't understand,” said Martin. “Perhaps some Eastern disease – they say that a curative doesn't always conquer them...” He described his symptoms as best he could with his mind swimming as it was.

“You – you absolute  _ idiot _ .” He found Felicia was staring in naked horror. “You're drinking the wakefulness philter every night, aren't you?”

“Ah...” Concentration was ebbing out of him like dust through his fist. “Yes. Yes, of course I did, what else was I supposed to do?”

“Drink on the nights when you felt the mad-dreams coming, I had thought.”

Martin rubbed his forehead. “I cannot rely on knowing that in advance.”

“Then every third night, perhaps. The nights that leave you specially uneasy. _ Anything _ but what you actually did, you...” Felicia pursed her lips, collecting herself. “The philter is a counter to fatigue only. But sleep is not merely the undoing of fatigue. It balances the mind, and the humors, and these blessings suffer doubly, triply, when fatigue is magically removed. So you begin to forget your mind, and your stomach roils, and soon – madness. Death. I'd wager before the week was out, in your case.” 

Martin sat down heavily on the grass. “You... mean this.”

Felicia nodded sharply, her eyes overbright. “Divines' mercy that you  _ weren't _ sick on top of it, or you might be dead already.”

“How can Giskel not have warned me?”

Felicia laughed in sobbing disbelief. “Because my Giskel never needed to be  _ told  _ that mortals require sleep . It takes a truly _ educated _ idiocy to start thinking to the contrary. Really, if magic could transform the hours of sleep into waking for ever, don't you imagine it would have happened some time in the Merethic Era?”

 

 

So at dusk, when the philter relinquished its grip, he slept. The desert reclaimed him that very night; there was a fountain of blood in Arcane's atrium, from which robed men drank as though it were precious wine. He woke, and though he lay in horror for a time ( _ madness – death – but a slower road than the one he had taken _ ), was soon claimed again by sleep so long deferred. He dreamed, then, that he fell an endless way from the Bruman road, and as he fell he could not find his father. An ordinary nightmare: a relief, almost.

He seriously considered sleeping again, though clear daylight streamed through the windows and though Felicia had told him the debt he'd drawn on himself could not be paid in a lump sum.

It was good he did not. Praneh was there at the chamber entrance, and she grabbed his arm and told him in an undertone: “There is someone asking for you at the south gate. Best greet her before she causes undue remark.”

It was only intellectually that he knew whom to expect. When he saw her, unwashed again and with a traveler's pack weighing down her back but still achingly beautiful, pleading her case with the battlemage at the gate with that desperate, tearful politeness that attended their first meeting, his heart leapt and he rushed to her as though his legs gave him no choice in the matter, and twined his hand in hers through the bars of the gate.

“She is known to me,” he told the battlemage, though he supposed he had made that much obvious. “Allow her passage.”

The battlemage cleared his throat. “You, ah, know it's those recognized by Arcane only? She'll need to enter the atrium and speak to Sinderion's clerk.”

Martin started. “But she is enro--"

Aldrea brushed her forefinger over her lips so deftly it might have been accident.

“No, I forget whereof I speak,” said Martin. “Lack of sleep has blurred me about the edges.” He touched the hidden latch of the gate, passed through it as though it were vapor, and, on the unguarded side, fell into Aldrea's embrace.

He was dazed by wonder, nestling her head against his throat: he did not fear her.

She gazed into his eyes, and Martin's insight saw there an all-blotting hunger, a need he swooped in eagerly to supply. When they parted in order to breathe, Aldrea began to tremble.

“You love me still,” she said. She touched her lips, as though to assure herself that Martin's had graced them. “Why then did you not write?”

It had not previously occurred to Martin that he had stopped.

“My father. He died. I was called to Bruma.” Martin found he could not bear to tell Aldrea the rest, that Vaermina had begun her work on him through her; it was as though he saw his father's path unfurled before his feet and had no will to find a fork.

Martin thought she tensed in fury around him, but next moment was certain he was mistaken; it made less than no sense for her to be _angry_.

He swallowed hard before saying what next needed to be said. “Vaermina... overcame him, Aldrea. And the day is coming when she claims me, if I do not find a way – and I have not found a way.”

Aldrea nipped at his jaw with an incongruous zest, then drew away from him – to open her purse, as he saw in a moment. As she looked back up at him her smile was wide with desire; her eyes spoke of claiming him for ever; and twined in her fingers was a chain, on which dangled a four-pointed brass star.

“I have.”

 

 

And before the hour had passed on their reunion, she had turned back toward Chorrol. Toward Chorrol, and toward Sanguine.

Her parting promise: that he, Martin, would one day soon be invited to join her there, and reunite in earnest on Sanguine's altar.

He flinched from the thought of her, among Sanguine's cultists. He admitted to himself that her passion for him was far from diminished by the experience, but he flinched all the same. And as for the thought of going himself – intrusive thoughts of Aldrea on the altar aside – it was a notion of such an alien shape that he did not know how to begin weighing it.

But he made no hesitation in hanging Sanguine's star on the inside of his bedpost. Only the prospect of missing more of the day's courses dissuaded him from sleeping under it then and there.

In the night, it was as though a thousand locked doors that had appeared to him during his time at Arcane flew open at once.

He dreamed he took fullest advantage of Master Hidja, walked away from his office with his arms weighed down in priceless scrolls, contemplating all that they might fetch.

He dreamed Sishara tore away his robes and she and Trenna had him, both at once, in broad daylight on the circling green, and Praneh watched, her lips full and parted.

He dreamed of Else and Tar-Meena and Brother Jauffre made to run naked through Talos Plaza while a jeering crowd threw arena-laurels at them.

How sweet to acquire and to conquer, said the dream to his heart. This thing he had thought of as power, and held so dear – what a paltry thing he was making of it, whispered the dream. Help with coursework, intimidating the new Associates, footling little jokes – when all the while, he could be truly _ascendant_.

 

 

“Say this for Aldrea,” said Giskel the following morning, “you did sleep well for once.” Every syllable was underlined with a giddy snigger; Martin had awoken to damp sheets, but until the moment Giskel made comment, he had held out hope that he had not made too much of a spectacle of himself. 

“It's a nice example, isn't it?” he went on. “I mean, if all it takes is a good dose of Felicia to keep visions of court robes from battering at my head... or even if she doesn't do the trick... shame Arcane is so _crowded_...”

He would ask for a turn with the star in a moment, Martin realized with a lurch, and knew he could already scarcely bear to part with it. He scrambled for some way to change the subject, and had no sooner cast about than he hit on much more than a mere diversion.

_Yes,_ Aldrea had said to him,  _I spoke true in my letters: I am enrolled with the Conjuration School of Chorrol. You_ can _trust me, you know. Only I never mentioned: it's because that Berene woman, the head mage, will take on anyone who walks in the door and asks. Few enough stick around that she can't be bothered to keep track._

“Since meeting Aldrea,” said Martin carefully, “I wonder if you need think of court robes at all. Forgive me if I hadn't quite got around to explaining how she obtained this bauble...”

 

Life, under the dreams of the star pendant, was intoxicating as his former dreams had been corrosive. It made him forgetful of his regrets, and ever mindful of his pleasures. His study partners saw the new desire in his eyes and warmed all the more to him for it (though Praneh, sensing the new light in which he saw her, was frankly alarmed). His _former_ study partner, in Alteration, saw a new impulse to mischief and dodged him all the more hastily. Steffan's presence meant a casual confidant, but after a week or so of he was absent, and that meant new opportunity. Everything turned to Martin's favor.

Best of all, he had had none of his strange insights since the day he first hung the chain around his bedpost.

If he knew it under the spell, he knew it all the more without = for on the ninth night, the pendant ceased to work entirely.

The memories he had tried hardest not to dwell on – the good memories – assailed him. Father giving him an honest footrace to the spring and besting him by several yards and assuring him that, were his stride longer, the places would have been reversed; Mother trying not to burst out laughing at the pronunciation he'd given words he had only read in books, while Father was so immaculate at a stony face that only the occasional flash of insight gave him away; the incomparable rest that sleep brought after a day's work at a hard and uncommon task, his parents stopping to show him where he erred, which was always more and more seldom as the fence-mending or food-smoking or hunt for the neighbor's goats carried on.

And his present was left cold and drab and empty. Mother and Father were dead, and not even their memory could be his mooring. He was a lone vessel adrift on the Sea of Ghosts.

All he did became an effort, like treading water instead of walking on the ground. What wasn't hollow was sheer misery. He could not bear the company of his friends long, and his unoccupied hours often found him sitting huddled in niches in the stonework, struggling vainly not to wrack his chest in sobs.

“Ormarson.”

Master Hayn stood before him, so grave he did not even bother to brush his hair from the broad bridge of his nose. “Ormarson. Tell me what's wrong.”

Martin shook his head helplessly. Where could he possibly begin? And with Hayn, of all people, straitlaced Hayn who regarded rashness as the cardinal sin – had he once, since entering this city, done a thing which was not rash?

But the voice of his father, his true father and not the wasted wraith, told him he must begin somewhere.

“My father is dead. Last winter. I have... known for a month now. He died of madness under the sway of the Prince of Nightmares, and so must I in his blood, for all my efforts have failed. The desert will become ever more real, and all I love will become a horror, and –” He did not utter his preeminent thought: _with every step I make on this island, I further forsake his memory._ If he did, Hayn might well turn away.

“The desert,” said Hayn.

“The dreams Vaermina visits upon me, impossible horrors that feel... real. Far more real than I feel as we speak. I do not know what she did to him. I only know the result: he died in madness, for fear of my face, though I was miles from him.”

“What efforts have you tried?”

How could he possibly give Master Hayn a true answer to that question?

But Hayn could not know what he was thinking, and only sat down by his side, while Martin stared on at his own fingers. “Ormarson, I have you read for one who'd try to take it all on your own shoulders. But a thing like this... it is precisely what we learn our history for. What hope do we have to bear these burdens, unless we rest some of it on the backs of the traveled past?”

“Then you... know a way?”

“Not quite,” said Hayn, his voice wistful. “But I think I may have a few ideas where to begin. If we apply ourselves diligently--” He rose suddenly. “I have an Adept lecture in ten minutes, forgive me--”

“Wait,” said Martin, his voice strangled as he scrambled to rise. “When may I see you?”

Hayn halted, nodded, and took from his satchel a metal-nibbed pen and a book of days. Martin saw, over Hayn's shoulder, that every box seemed already occupied. Hayn looked down at length through his bangs, then finally sighed and said, “Perhaps the disciplinary meeting can be postponed.” He drew a neat line through the evening box between PUBLISHER and CHORROL LECTURE CIRCUIT. “This Middas, then. Dusk. My office, second floor of the tower, the most nearly northwest – forgive its paltriness. We may arrange a more regular schedule come next month – but I really must be going now.”

Martin watched him bustle off, too numbed in the icy water to hope his aid would make a difference, but stonily determined to keep treading, with hope or without it.

 

 

The next few days, even Sundas, consisted solely of marking time. He was as diligent in his study as he could be in the meantime, but it was as though his mind were old linen, pounded in a felting press, and he could not speak confidently of his success.

On the night of Tirdas, his fitful sleep was interrupted by the light of a lantern shining in his eyes.

He opened them, to find it was not a lantern at all, but Aldrea's star, shining a bright, piercing gold.

He stared dumbly for what might have been half of an hour, then bolted at once from his bed and roused Giskel.

He stared long, ran his fingers through his tousled hair, and the old grin spread itself over his face. “Conjuration School it is, then.”

Without further ado, he rushed off to find Felicia. Martin's accounts of Aldrea had given him confidence that she would gladly follow.

 

Martin's own choice was simple enough, on its face. Hayn's tutelage was a last thin straw to grasp at, while Sanguine's power had more than proven its efficacy.

He could not escape the certainty that Hayn was the one his father would have sought. But he must ignore that. His father was dead.

Dangling the star from his hand for a light, he quietly packed his things, and Giskel's, and made haste with the packs out onto the green.

Awaiting him there in the green hours of dawn were not only Giskel relieved that he didn't need to pack, and not only Giskel and Felicia. The whole set. Trenna rshed to assure him that he would not go alone, and Sishara said that neither Martin nor Trenna need worry about that – her regard for Trenna seemed, since the incident with the conjured sword, quite genuine.

(Trenna and Sishara still knew nothing of Aldrea, he realized. Perhaps, when they got to the shrine, he could pretend for their sake to be meeting her for the first time – which meant he had better scout ahead before the rest, when the time came.)

But Praneh stood mute, and still as a pillar.

“I can't do this,” she said at last.

“Wha- how can you _possibly_ pass this up?” demanded Giskel.

Praneh grimaced and spoke to her feet as she explained. “All we've been doing at Arcane – it's been fun. It's been tremendous fun, all told. But it's not my life. I came to Arcane in order to garner myself the best and most useful trade I could, and I'm not throwing that away simply because it's what the rest of you think best. I know it _is_ best for you, Martin, and for you, Giskel, and it's not my place to have a say on you three... but I know, there is no doubt in my mind, that _my_ best lies here.”

Martin stared, aghast, not in regret for her, but because, if losing a study partner was a spray of rock from his mountain, than the loss of Praneh was the hewing away of a peak. But he only said: “We will all miss you, Praneh. Terribly."

They trundled off into the night. Martin had to feign, for the time being, the excitement that all the others burbled with so naturally, half-drowned in thoughts of the desert and of his father. But he knew well enough that, when he reached Sanguine, that would change.

 

 

Darkness descended on Middas, and deepened, and turned to midnight, with no sign of Martin. Rufus Hayn laid his head against the desk and stifled a groan of despair as the depth of his failure began to wash over him.

 


End file.
